Catch me if you can
by LittleFairy78
Summary: An unknown psychopath forces Shawn to play a game. Shawn is forced to solve the mystery with psychic abilities he doesn't possess. And the stakes are high. Very high. Shawn has no choice but to play along. Winner of the 2008 Silver Pineapple- Best Mystery
1. 4:00am The Call

Thanks to MusicalLuna for being the beta on this one. I would like to claim that all remaining mistakes are, by logic, hers, but I know I won't get away with it. They're all mine, but without her wonderful job there would have been lots and loads more.

"The Challenge" by psychologist over at Psychfic (dot) com: _An evil Psycho is challenging Shawn. It's a game to him, conjuring up impossible challenges that stretches Shawn's ability to the limit, and if he fails? His friends and family could be caught in the crossfire._

**Catch Me If You Can**

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warning: There is some bad language in this story. Nothing that's not covered by the rating, in my opinion, but I just thought I'd let you know.

**Chapter 1 –**** 04.00am: The Call**

From somewhere, there came music.

Groggily, Shawn turned around in his bed and pulled the pillow over his head. To no avail.

The music continued playing, a slightly metallic sound that penetrated even through the fabric and downs of the pillow. And then he recognised it.

_La Cucaracha._

Shawn groaned and slowly sat up in his bed. _La Cucaracha_ was his ring tone for unknown callers. Shawn ran a hand over his face as he blindly groped for his cell phone on the bedside table. He checked his alarm clock. 04.01 am. He groaned again. If this was his father calling with his number suppressed to get him out of bed for a stupid fishing trip, or for an early morning exercise in mowing the lawn, he would kill him. He was fairly sure that patricide was a crime punishable by law, but he was sure that calls at 4.00am were a very good reason to plead temporary insanity.

His fingers closed around the phone and he sank back into his pillow as he answered the call.

"Hello?" he croaked out.

"Good morning, Shawn", a raspy, somewhat metallic voice said. Something about that voice was off, and Shawn sat up in his bed, heart beating fast in his chest all of a sudden.

"Who is this?"

"Your wake up call", the voice continued with a cheerful undertone. But that metallic distortion was still there. That was it, Shawn realised. That voice was distorted, the caller was using some sort of device to disguise his voice.

"Yeah, really funny. I'm going to hang up now."

The voice chuckled. "You do that. But maybe you should check your mail before you go back to bed. I'm sure you'll be more in a mood to talk after that."

And the line was dead. Shawn kept sitting on his bed for a few more moments, trying to make sense of that strange phone call. His first instinct was to just ignore it and go back to sleep, just for the sake of not doing what some unknown midnight caller wanted of him. But curiosity got the better of him, like it always did. One day, it would get him killed like the proverbial cat, that's what his father had always told him, but Shawn couldn't help himself.

He got out of bed and crossed the bedroom. Carefully, he went out into the hall and slowly opened his apartment's front door.

There was nobody out in the hallway, and Shawn's heartbeat slowed down a little.

Then his eyes fell onto the manila envelope that was lying on his doormat. Shawn checked to make sure that there truly wasn't anybody out there in the hall, then he grabbed the envelope and withdrew back into the apartment. He locked the door and put on the chain, then he went back into his bedroom and sat down on his bed.

His rational voice – which sounded annoyingly like his father – told him not to open the envelope. It could be anything, really. In the worst case a bomb or something. But Shawn figured that the envelope was too thin for that, and without thinking further about it he tore open the flap.

The envelope contained a letter and a photo that was printed out on a letter-sized piece of paper. Shawn already had the letter in his hand, but then his eyes fell on the photograph and he froze. It was a printed out copy, enlarged so that it filled nearly the entire sheet of paper. It was black and white, and it was grainy, but still it was clear enough to make out all the necessary details.

The picture showed his father, on his way from his truck to the front door of his house. He was carrying a newspaper and some groceries under his arm, so the picture had to have been taken in the morning. Henry Spencer had his head turned away slightly from the camera, but his profile was clearly visible. But that wasn't what caused Shawn's heart to beat faster in his chest and his throat to suddenly feel dry.

No, that reaction was caused solely by the crosshairs somebody had hand-drawn over his father's head with black marker.

Shawn didn't know for how long he stared at the grainy photograph, but finally he tore his eyes away and put the picture down. He didn't know what kind of sick joke was being played on him, but he would find out who was behind it. He unfolded the second sheet of paper and started to read.

_Catch me if you can, Shawn Spencer._

_The game is on, and it's your turn to move._

_The rules are simple:_

_1. No police. You will not go to the police station. You will not call any officers, active or retired. You will not allow the police to involve you in the official investigation._

_2. You will not tell anybody that you're partaking in this game._

_3. You will not warn your father or anybody else._

_4. At the appropriate time, you will be given instructions as to what the next challenge of the game will be. You will follow all instructions to the letter. You will perform the tasks you're given in this game within the time you are given._

_5. If you breach any of the rules above, or if you do not perform the tasks given to you within the time you're given, the game is over and you lose._

_The reward for winning the game is a one-on-one meeting amongst equals._

_The punishment for losing the game will be severe for your father. Take a look at the picture I enclosed to this letter if you need further motivation to put all your abilities and focus into the tasks you will be given._

_You will be called with instructions for the first round of the game._

_Catch me if you can, Shawn Spencer!_

Shawn read the letter, then he read it again and again, until the words blurred in front of his eyes.

A game? What kind of sick joke was that? Somebody dropped off letters in front of his apartment in the middle of the night, then woke him up and wanted to play a sick little game? With his father as a pawn who'd be punished if Shawn broke one of the stupid little rules? It was much too early for shit like that, that's what it was.

Shawn tossed the letter and the picture of his father to the floor, lay back on the bed and pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger. But no matter how much he strained his brain, he could not come up with an idea as to who the mysterious letter writer was.

Or why he was taking pictures of his father.

Or why he wanted to play a game with Shawn in the first place.

And why was a "meeting amongst equals" the prize for winning the game? Meeting against equal what? Psychics? Fake psychics? Sleuths? Aries? People who like _America's Next Top Model_? It just didn't make sense.

Shawn's cell phone rang again.

_La Cucaracha._

For a moment, Shawn contemplated not answering, but then the feeling won out that he couldn't stand not to know what this was all about and he answered it.

"Hello?"

"I take it you've had time to read the letter that was left for you?" It was the same voice as before, with the same mechanical distortion that rendered it unrecognisable.

"Yes I did", Shawn said carefully.

"Then you know what this is all about."

Shawn shook his head and got up from the bed. "No, I don't know what this is all about, all right? And I don't want to know. I'm not playing any stupid games just because somebody thinks it's a fun idea to leave letters on my doorstep in the middle of the night! I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but I won't be a part of it."

"I'm afraid that not partaking in the game is not an option for you right now, Shawn."

"Listen, I don't care what you think my options are, all right?", Shawn yelled. "I'm not playing your stupid game!"  
"If you don't participate in the game, you're forcing me to start the game with a punishment. Didn't the letter tell you what would happen if you break a rule?" The voice was snarling now, the caller's patience clearly wearing thin. Well, Shawn could compete with that.

"Listen, you sick fuck, I don't give a damn about your stupid game. I wont play along, and there's not a thing you can do about it."

There was a sigh, metallically distorted. "Then your father will pay the price."

"You will keep your sick hands off my father, do you understand? There is no game, understand me? Find somebody else to play with, and if you don't just go ahead and play with yourself!"

"I see. Maybe it takes a little more for the importance of all this to sink in."

"You know what? Let it sink in somewhere else, all right?", Shawn yelled and snapped the phone shut.

Angrily, he tossed it onto the bedside table and sank back down on the bed. He knew he should be a little worried about somebody who got off on trying to scare people in the middle of the night, but right now he was mainly angry.

He wasn't so much scared for his father right now. Henry Spencer was probably lying in bed, fast asleep, all doors and windows of his house locked securely and his gun within reach in the bedroom. His father knew how to take care of himself. But Shawn didn't want to be forced into playing along with somebody else's game. He didn't want to be forced into anything. Not by people he knew, and most certainly not by somebody he didn't even know.

Shawn angrily slammed his palm against the light switch and pulled the covers back up over himself. He was far too wired to sleep again, he knew that, but still. He would just close his eyes and sleep would come, later rather than sooner. He wouldn't let a crazed guy who didn't know what else to do with his time interfere with his sleep. The American Medical Association clearly advised seven to eight hours of sleep at night as healthy.

But sleep didn't come.

After what felt like an eternity, Shawn checked the alarm clock again. 5.04am. Eternity had only lasted about twenty-five minutes. He could as well get up, take a shower and start the day. The thing about going back to sleep was not going to work out, anyway.

Then his cell phone rang again.

It was only the sound announcing a new text message, not his ring tone, but it was enough to have Shawn sit up bolt upright in his bed, heart beating fast in his chest.

This wasn't normal, he shouldn't let some stupid prank call by a madman get to him like that. But still his fingers were shaking slightly as he reached for his cell phone.

It could be something completely harmless.

It could be a message from somebody else.

A message from Gus, that could be it. Yeah, right. Because Gus so often sent him text messages at five in the morning.

Shawn sat on the edge of the bed and opened his cell phone.

He had one new text message, from an unknown sender. It was short, only two words long in fact. But those two words were terrifying enough to send Shawn's pulse racing again.

_Call Daddy._


	2. 5:30am Instructions

**Chapter 2 – ****5.30am: Instructions**

Without thinking, Shawn punched his father's number into the cell phone and brought it up to his ear. It rang, and he impatiently waited for either his father or the answering machine to pick up. After the eighth ring, he disconnected and hit the speed dial for his father's cell. Normally, his father answered after the second or third ring, day or night. And the answering machine picked up after four rings.

Something was wrong.

This time it rang three times before the call was answered.

"Hello?" Henry Spencer's voice said gruffly.

Shawn breathed a silent sigh of relief, drew breath to say something but then released it again when he realised that he didn't know what to say. What reason could he give his father for calling at five in the morning? That he had worried? Yeah right, like his father would buy that.

"Hello?" Henry asked again, impatiently. "Who's there?" Interestingly enough, his voice didn't sound as if he had just woken up from sleep.

"It's me, Dad. Are you all right?"

There was a pause. "Why are you calling me, Shawn?"

Shawn frowned, not so much because of the question but because there were sounds in the background on his father's side of the conversation which he couldn't quite place. Definite signs of activity, but Shawn couldn't say which activities.

"I don't know, Dad. I just woke up and had a bad gut feeling, so I thought I'd check in on you."

"A son's premonition, is that what you're trying to tell me? Cut the crap, Shawn."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is why exactly you are calling me in the middle of the night, just to ask me how I'm doing, and coincidentally you do that fifteen minutes after the kitchen caught fire?"

Shawn's heart stopped for a beat. "What?"

"The kitchen is on fire, Shawn. Which is why I don't really have the time to chat right now."

"Are…are you all right?"

Henry sighed impatiently. "Yes, I am all right. I woke up because I thought I heard the doorbell, then I smelled the smoke and called the fire department. The fire is nearly out, and it didn't spread to any other room. But right now, I've got to focus on what's going on here, Shawn. We are going to talk about your premonition later today, after I've dealt with the fire fighters, cops and the insurance."

Not giving Shawn a chance to reply to that, Henry disconnected the call.

Shawn stared at the phone in his hand in disbelief. This could not be a coincidence. Half an hour after the arrival of the letter and the phone call. Half an hour after the open threat against his father and now his kitchen was on fire? Fat chance that this was an accident.

Shawn tossed the phone onto the bed and got up. He started pacing in front of the bed, hands buried in his hair. He should have warned his father right after that psycho had called, that's what he should have done. Shawn didn't even want to imagine what could have happened if his father hadn't woken up in time to notice the fire before it spread.

Which was the next strange thing. His father had woken up because he thought he had heard the doorbell. Why would he think he had heard the doorbell if there hadn't been anybody there to ring it?

Sending letters with threatening pictures was one thing, but setting his father's kitchen on fire was a whole different category altogether.

The slightly metallic sound of _La Cucaracha_ started to chime from the direction of the bed. Shawn needed to change the ringtone, urgently. He started to hate that song.

Shawn took a deep breath, then he answered the phone.

"I take it you've called Daddy, Shawn?"

"You set fire to my father's house, you sick bastard! You could have killed him!"

A chuckle echoed hollowly through the line. "Had I wanted to kill him, I wouldn't have rung the doorbell, Shawn. I'd have waited for the flames to cut off all his escape routes and I'd have watched him burn alive."

"What do you want?" Shawn brought out from behind clenched teeth. "Why are you doing this?"

"I told you, I want to play a game. You were the one who didn't want to play along, what happened to your father's house is solely your fault. You could have kept him out of this, but you insisted on breaking the rules before the game even began."

Shawn clenched the phone so hard in his hand that his knuckles turned white. "Why me? What do you want from me?"

Again, whoever was on the other end of the line chuckled. "I want you to play a game with me, Shawn. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Again, why _me_?"

"You're not my first choice, Shawn, if that's any consolation. I tried to play with the police, but they were too stupid to pick up the clues I left them. I checked your track record, Shawn. It's impressive. You've solved all your cases so far, even the ones the police couldn't. Such a good record merits an award. So now you get to play, and the police are out of the game."

Shawn sank down on the bed. "What if I don't want to play a game with you?"

There was a moment of silence on the line. "That is not an option, Shawn. Not fulfilling one of the challenges of the game means punishment. Have you already forgotten what is at stake here? Do I need to pay your father another visit?"

"No!" Shawn shook his head as he desperately tried to make sense of all that had happened over the past hour. "No, stay away from my father."

"Then stop questioning the game and start playing along. If you do that, there will be no need to involve your father any further. If you stick to the rules, that is."

Shawn drew a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair again, trying to flatten down the strands that were standing up at odd angles. His mind was busy racing through all possibilities, but the result was always the same – right now he didn't have another option but to play along. Not until he knew more about this guy, and about this game.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Now we're getting somewhere. What I want you to do is stick to the rules you were given. Another slip up, and your father won't get away with nothing but a little renovation work to be done in his kitchen. The next time you break the rules, renovation work will have to be done to his body, by a mortician."

Anger was rising in Shawn again, but he forced it back down. Not now. Later. "What do you want me to do?" he repeated.

"The game is easy, Shawn. Very easy. Obviously not easy enough for the police to pick up on, but you're far more clever than they are. I've got high hopes for you. All the game is about is for you to find the clues I left along the way of my work. They are well hidden, I admit that, but a good cop should be able to find them. A psychic definitely should be. If you're as good as I think you are, then those clues will make you able to get the reward of the game."  
"A one on one meeting with you", Shawn spat out. "What a reward."

Another chuckle. "Oh, but it is. A meeting amongst equals – the one who created the puzzle and the one who was clever enough to solve it. Psychic or not, if you're the one to solve the puzzle, you're the one who gets a shot at taking me in. One shot. But that is still a long way off, Shawn. Why don't we focus on the first challenge of the game and talk about the reward when there is time for it? Are you ready to receive your first set of instructions?"

Shawn chuckled mirthlessly. "No. But I don't think I have a choice, do I?"

"No", the caller agreed. "You don't. So listen carefully. It is 5.30am now. There's a police crime scene on 371 Franklin Boulevard, the second floor apartment. That's where you'll find your first clue. You have exactly two hours. If you don't find the clue until then, you fail the task and your father will receive a more serious punishment. Remember the rules. You will be watched. Every attempt at breaking the rules will be punished. I will call you at precisely 7.30am. You'd better get started, you have a twenty-minute drive ahead of you."

"Wait, what exactly am I looking for?"

There was a click, and the line went dead. Shawn slowly brought the phone down from his ear and disconnected his end of the call. He didn't know what had just happened, but this guy was serious. Damnit, this guy had set fire to his father's kitchen, just to prove a point. And now he wanted to play a game with Shawn, a game Shawn was supposed to be solving with psychic abilities he didn't even have.

All right, so obviously a good cop should be able to find the clues as well. Shawn knew that he was more observant than most of the cops working in this city, but how was he supposed to find a clue if the only thing he knew was that it was there somewhere? Noticing something out of the ordinary at a crime scene was one thing, looking for something that had to be there but of which he didn't even know what it could be was something totally different.

After a moment Shawn tossed the phone onto the bed and pulled a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt out of the wardrobe. He was wasting time sitting here. Somehow, Shawn had the feeling that if anything, this psycho was a punctual one. He quickly shrugged into the clothes and slipped into a pair of boots. His cell phone and the psycho's letter with the instructions went into his leather jacket, then he grabbed his helmet and keys.

For now, he'd play along with the stupid little game. But as soon as he found a way to alert either his father or the police without letting the psycho know that he was "breaking the rules", he'd do it. That guy would not get another chance at exercising more of his punishments.

Shawn left his apartment and got onto his bike which was parked down in front of his apartment building. Franklin Boulevard was indeed a twenty minute drive away, during daytime and including normal traffic. But given the early hour and Shawn's knowledge of all the city's shortcuts, he'd be surprised if he couldn't make it in fifteen, or even a little less. He started the bike, kicked it into gear and pulled onto the street.


	3. 5:30 to 7:30am: The First Challenge

Huge thanks go out to MusicalLuna and GBFreak1 for betaing this. Should I ever forget to mention them, they both betaed the whole story, and you don't want to believe how many mistakes there aren't in this story because of them

**Chapter 3 – ****5:30-7:30am: The First Challenge**

Franklin Boulevard was an ordinary street in an ordinary residential area. Shawn pulled his bike up in front of No. 371, took off his helmet and approached the building. The street was silent, no other cars or pedestrians on the streets at this early hour of the morning.

There hadn't been much traffic in general, and Shawn should know. He had been overcome by a strong sense of paranoia after the caller's threat that he was watching Shawn. But no matter how much he checked the oncoming traffic and the few cars that rode behind him for a short while, there had been nothing suspicious about any of it. No cars that followed him for longer than a block or two, no cars that appeared and reappeared. So either the psycho had been lying, or he was good.

He had been at his father's house earlier, but after setting the kitchen on fire there would have been enough time for him to get to Shawn's apartment building before Shawn left. Theoretically, he could be watching Shawn from somewhere close by, even though Shawn couldn't see him.

So right now, Shawn couldn't be sure that the man wasn't following him, and in that case there was only one alternative. He had to pretend that the man was following him and watching him to make sure Shawn stuck to the rules. And if that was the case, sooner or later Shawn would spot him.

Shawn entered the apartment building through the unlocked front door and climbed the stairs to the second floor. It wasn't difficult to figure out which of the two second floor apartments was the one with the crime scene.

Shawn went over towards the door with the yellow crime scene tape in front of it and pulled out his keys. _Always come prepared to a crime scene_. One of his father's mottos. Henry would be so proud if he knew that it was one piece of advice his son had heeded. But then again, maybe he wouldn't be. It was hard to make his father proud of just about anything. Maybe Shawn should find somebody to stitch the words onto a pillow, then at least he wouldn't have to worry about getting his father a Christmas present.

A few seconds with the lock pick, and the lock disengaged and the door opened. Shawn ducked underneath the crime scene tape and entered the apartment. He closed the door behind him and took a look around.

It was eerie, being at a crime scene and not even knowing what had happened, or whom it had happened to. Shawn switched on the light in the hallway and took a careful look around.

Hallway closet.

Six pairs of shoes, all men's leather shoes.

Framed pictures on the wall, some landscapes that didn't tell Shawn anything about the former occupant of the apartment.

Small hallway table, with a bowl for keys. No keys.

Bedroom to the left, the bed made up and nothing of interest lying around.

Kitchen to the right, looking as if it had never been used. A bowl with apples and bananas on the counter, the fruit slowly turning brown, the rest of the kitchen empty except for a pint of soy milk and some carrots in the fridge. Whoever lived or had lived here was probably lactose intolerant, if Shawn had to venture a guess.

There were traces of CSI dusting for fingerprints everywhere in the apartment, and the occasional evidence sign, but Shawn ignored those. Psycho had been pretty sure that the police hadn't bagged the evidence he had wanted them to find. So whatever Shawn was supposed to find still had to be here, and it certainly wasn't to be found anywhere near the evidence markers. But at least the status of the crime scene told Shawn one thing: it was a relatively new crime scene. Cleanup hadn't been here yet, so it was maybe a day old, two at the most.

Last Shawn entered the living room. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was where the crime had happened. Evidence markers and fingerprint dust wherever Shawn looked. And, of course, the huge bloodstain in front of the cream coloured sofa was a pretty good indication of what had happened here. That much lost blood could only have two possible explanations – knife or bullet.

Shawn remained standing in the doorway for a few moments and took in the scene. For the first time he noticed how difficult it was to reconstruct a crime after the fact, without the help of a police report.

The victim, probably the owner of the apartment, had been sitting on the sofa. Had the TV been turned on and he hadn't heard the assailant enter the apartment? Or had he invited the murderer in and the police had tagged and bagged all possible evidence of another person being present before Shawn's arrival?

There was a magazine lying on the coffee table, a copy of _Men's Health_, and two remote controls were lined up right beside it. The way everything was lined up, the magazines and the remotes, the books and pictures on the shelves, practically screamed that the victim had been a neat freak, but nothing immediately stood out despite the order.

A desk stood in the corner near the window, and Shawn went over to take a closer look. Legal textbooks in the shelf beside the desk, but the size of the apartment hinted at the former occupant being a small time lawyer. Had he been more successful, surely he'd have lived somewhere more upscale, something where he wouldn't have used part of his living room as his home office.

There was a legal pad on the desk, also neatly lined up against the edge of the table, but it was brand new and had never been written on. Nothing to find there.

Shawn drew a deep breath and just looked.

The desk surface was empty except for the pad and some pens.

The bookshelves contained nothing but books, and from the looks of it, the police had already gone through them.

All kinds of office paraphernalia in the top drawer – paper clips, sticky pads, more pens and pencils, the usual assorted stuff.

More legal pads in the second drawer. Shawn flipped through them, but like the one on the desktop they were all brand-new and nothing was stuck between the pages.

Shawn sighed and stepped back from the desk. He checked his watch. 6:45am. He had less than an hour left to find whatever it was the psycho had left for him to find, and he had no idea where it could be.

What had he overlooked?

He looked around the room again, but it was so neat and orderly that nothing at all stood out. Nothing.

Sofa, coffee table, two armchairs, TV, desk, there was nothing else there.

More pictures like in the hallway hung on the walls. Nondescript landscapes, black and white photographs of deserts, coastlines and what looked like the rainforest.

Wait a second.

At first Shawn didn't know what disturbed him about the pictures, but as he took a closer look he suddenly knew.

The rainforest picture was hanging too far to the right. Not far, maybe two inches, but the way everything else in the apartment was lined up, it stood out if one took a closer look. Somebody who lined up his legal pad with the edge of his desk surely would take care to hang up his pictures evenly spaced. The ones in the hallway were. All the other pictures here in the living room were.

All but this one.

Shawn went over to the photograph of the rainforest and took down the frame. He could clearly see the old hole for the nail two inches to the left of the one where the nail was stuck now. Somebody had moved the picture, and Shawn thought it unlikely that Mr. neat-freak not-so-upscale lawyer had done so.

When he turned the picture around, Shawn found something stuck underneath the frame. He carefully pulled it out.

It was a playing card. A jack of spades, to be precise. And that was it. Nothing else on it, no hidden clue as to what that playing card could mean. But Shawn was sure that this was the clue his unknown caller had been talking about. Shawn put it into his inside pocket, hung the picture back into its previous place and took one last look around the apartment. He hadn't left a trace of his presence here, so Shawn turned and left the apartment.

On the whole drive home he thought about the "clue". A playing card, how imaginative. But Shawn had to admit that it had been well hidden. Normal protocol of investigating a crime scene of course implied looking around the scene for everything that was out of place, but noticing that the picture was out of alignment was expecting a little too much from the police. No wonder they hadn't caught it, Shawn wasn't sure he would have if he hadn't known that_something_ in the apartment had to be changed by the perp.

But his finding the card brought forth other dark speculations. Psycho had talked about clues during his calls. Plural. Just how many more crimes had the madman committed in hopes of the police catching up on his sick little game? And why hadn't anybody noticed that those crimes were connected? Shawn knew that the police missed a lot of clues during their investigations, but he also knew that Lassiter and Juliet were good cops. They still missed things that Shawn would notice, but they were clever enough to make connections.

Which meant that psycho's work was anything but obvious. Just great.

And why a jack of spades? Psycho had said that the clues would lead Shawn to him. Now, he only had one clue so far, but as far as directions went he'd have hoped for something more specific. He didn't ask for a piece of a city map with a big fat X marked somewhere, but something a little more specific than a jack of spades would have been nice.

What could a jack of spades mean?

Card games. Poker. Casinos. Full House.

Or maybe he had to take it separately.

Jack. Jack in a box. Jack of all trades. Jack Sparrow. Jacking a car. Chop shop? No.

Spades. Spade. Digging? Gardening? Was he supposed to dig something up?

Now he was reaching, so it was good that he reached his street and could stop thinking while he parked his bike in front of his apartment building. Maybe the playing card would make more sense if he found another of those clues. It was 7:25am. Psycho would be calling him soon.

Shawn opened the front door and went up the two flights of stairs towards his apartment. He was so lost in thought about the playing card that he did a double take when he walked over towards his apartment door.

There was another manila envelope lying on his doormat.

Psycho had been here while Shawn had been gone.

Heart beating fast in his chest and his throat dry, Shawn carefully picked up the envelope. He was sure that psycho had been clever enough not to leave fingerprints, but it couldn't hurt to check that later.

Envelope in hand Shawn entered the apartment and carried it over towards the kitchen table. Just as he drew a deep breath and reached for the envelope to open it, the electronic sound of _La Cucaracha_ started to chime through the room.

Psycho was calling again.


	4. 7:30 to 10:30am: The Second Challenge

**Chapter 4 – 7.30****-10.30am: The Second Challenge**

Shawn sat down and flipped open his phone.

"You're punctual, I have to give you that."

There was a chuckle. "Punctuality pays off, Shawn. Now, I'm sure that you have found the package I left for you."

Shawn eyed the envelope. "Yeah, I actually have a question about that."

Another chuckle. "You didn't open it already, did you?"

"No, I was saving that for a special occasion. I had my ninety-fifth birthday in mind. No, my question was of a different nature. How come that you had the time to leave a package on my doorstep if you were busy watching what I was doing over at Franklin Boulevard? Or was this whole thing about me being watched nothing but an empty threat?"

Shawn had expected some sort of reaction to his words. Surprise, most probably, but he'd have gladly taken any sort of reaction to show that psycho hadn't expected him to question the instructions he was given. He was disappointed. There was not a moment of silence on the line, no sharp intake of breath, no stammering.

Nothing but another chuckle. "Oh, I expected you to ask that question, Shawn. In fact, anything else would have surprised me. You do live up to my expectations."

"Well, that's great. I'm so glad I can live up to somebody's expectations, even if it's only the expectations of a psycho with a prepaid cell phone. But you didn't answer my question."

"No I didn't. I'm sorry, Shawn. You left your apartment at 5:35am, put on your helmet like every good traffic participant is supposed to and drove off West. You arrived at Franklin Boulevard at precisely 5:48am, meaning that you made good time. But that could be because you cut your way short by taking State Street along the Park instead of hitting the freeway and circling around. You do know your way around the city, it seems. But to come back to topic, you entered the apartment at 5:51am and stayed in there until 7:05am. Then you put your shiny helmet back on and rode back to your apartment where you arrived at 7:24am. I did notice that you took the longer route on the way back, but my guess is that your mind was busy trying to figure out my clue so that you didn't think much about which route you were taking. Now, does that answer your question, Shawn?"

Shawn bit his lip. It did, and he didn't like it. "Yes."

It still didn't explain when psycho had found the time to leave the present on Shawn's doorstep, but he'd think about that later when he had the time.

"Good. Now that this little misunderstanding has been cleared up, let us proceed. We'll save the envelope for later. The most important thing is whether or not you found the clue I left."

"I did. But the most important question _I_ have is whether you killed the guy who was living in that apartment just so that you could leave a clue for your little game there in the first place."

There as a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Psycho's voice, when he spoke again, was more tense than it had been before. "That doesn't matter now, Shawn. Not at all."

"Well, if you killed somebody just because you wanted to play a game and couldn't find a voluntary playmate, it does matter to me!"

"It doesn't" the metallic voice snarled. "And we're finished talking about this."

"No, we're not fi…"

"We are finished! You were supposed to find a clue, and if you talk about anything else for a moment longer, you'll force me to believe that you didn't find the clue and are just trying to stall me. That would be breaking the rules, Shawn. Do you want to break the rules, _again_?"

Shawn drew a deep breath. "No."

"Good." The voice sounded cheerful again. "Now, tell me what you found."

"A crappy place to hide a clue, that's what I found. Shifting around pictures in the apartment of a borderline obsessive neat-freak? Come on, I'd have imagined you were really trying to make an effort."

"What did you find?"

"A playing card, that's what I found. A jack of spades to be precise. There, are you happy now?"

Psycho chuckled. "Good. Now was that so hard?"

"I don't know. Isn't a clue supposed to lead somewhere? Isn't it supposed to _clue_ the finder in on something? Because a jack of spades is not really telling, as far as clues go. It's a bit amateurish, to be honest. Or is it your name? Shall I call you Jack?"

Again, psycho only chuckled. "If you want to."

"But that's not the clue."

"No, that's not the clue Shawn. You still have other clues to uncover, and once you have them all I'm sure you'll see things in the right light."

Shawn leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. "All right, so now what? Another set of instructions?"

"All in due time. Now would be the appropriate time to open that envelope."

Shawn hated being told what to do, but despite that he picked up the envelope and tore open the flap.

"If you re-printed the rules and sent them to me, you could have spared yourself the effort. I have a pretty good memory."

"Less talking, Shawn."

Shawn reached into the envelope and pulled out two more folded sheets of paper. He put the envelope away and unfolded the sheets.

It were two more printed photographs.

Shawn looked at the first for a moment, then at the second, then he closed his eyes tightly. "You bastard", he grunted out from between clenched teeth.

Psycho only chuckled. "I thought it was about time to be raising the stakes."

"There was no need for that. Your threat to my father was pretty clear."

"It took a fire in your father's kitchen for you to start playing the game. I thought you might be a little more forthcoming if the stakes were different."

The first picture wasn't a real shocker, not after everything that had already happened this morning. It showed his father's house again, just like the first picture Shawn had received. Only this picture was extremely grainy, as if it had been taken with a cell phone and not a camera. Shawn wasn't able to make out many details, but he could clearly make out the fire truck parked on the street in front of the house, and the blurry figures standing on the lawn and the street. Psycho had taken the picture after he had set his father's kitchen on fire.

Shawn had already known that his midnight caller had been at his father's house earlier and that he sent a picture now to prove it further wasn't a big shocker.

The second picture was in a different category altogether. Shawn took one last look at the photograph of Gus getting out of his car in front of his apartment building, then he quickly stuffed both pictures into the inside pocket of his jacket, just like he had done with the photograph of his father.

"Leave Gus out of this."

"No." Psycho's voice sounded far too cheerful for Shawn's liking. "I think I won't leave Gus out of it. Let the photograph serve as a reminder, just in case you get tired of playing the game. The stakes have risen now, and if you think about quitting before the game is finished, just keep in mind that you won't be able to warn everybody you're close to in time. I know a lot about you, Shawn Spencer, and your father and best friend are not the only people on my list. I just thought you might need a little reminder of that."

Shawn didn't say anything in response. In fact, for the first time he could remember, he didn't know what to say at all.

"But I'm sure you're curious as to your new set of instructions, aren't you?"

"I can barely stand the excitement of not knowing", Shawn drawled. It was hard, but he thought he managed to keep a tight reign on his voice and managed to keep his inner turmoil of emotions from showing.

"Good. It's 7:45am. The next crime scene you are going to visit is a slight bit older than the one you previously visited. The cleanup crew has already been there, so the task might be a little more difficult. I'll grant you more time for this one. Shearer Park, take the Park entry on Watkins Drive. The crime scene is by the willows just twenty yards north of the playground. You have until 10:30am. Oh, and Shawn? Don't bother looking for a playing card. I'm not that predictable."

And the line went dead.

Shawn closed the phone, put it down on the kitchen table and drew a deep breath. This was getting out of hand. Psycho might think he had raised the stakes, but to Shawn this was more. This was crossing a line. Leaping over the line, really.

Threatening his Dad was one thing, and it was bad enough. With or without the little bonfire in the kitchen of Shawn's childhood home, it was bad enough. But Henry Spencer was an ex-cop, somebody who was one a first-name basis with the bad things people were capable of. His Dad was constantly suspicious of everything and everybody, and he had access to a loaded gun within his reach at home.

Gus was another matter entirely. Involving Gus in this was a low blow. As low as it could get. And that bastard had already proven that he was serious about his "punishments", so Shawn wouldn't risk anything happening to Gus.

Psycho might think he was raising the stakes, but in fact he was only making Shawn more and more angry. Now he was still keeping him occupied with those stupid tasks and deadlines, but Shawn would find out who he was and what he wanted, and then he'd turn the tables on psycho. That was for sure.

Right now, Shawn had to get to Shearer Park, and he'd take twice as much care to notice if anybody was following him. There had to be an explanation as to how the guy could know where and when Shawn did what and at the same time be able to leave a package on his doorstep.

Psycho had to be mobile, for sure. Probably in a car. Those pictures he left for Shawn had to be printed out somehow, so most probably he was transporting a portable printer around. And if he was following Shawn, he surely wasn't riding in a cab or a taxi. Not on a motorcycle, either. So that left a car. Shawn needed to keep his eyes open for any car following him. Not an easy task, seeing that early morning rush hour was about to start soon.

Once more, Shawn left his apartment, put on his helmet, straddled his bike and went on the ten minute drive to Shearer Park.

It was still well before 8:00am when he arrived at the entrance to the park his unknown caller had told him to take. He had kept his eyes open during the entire drive, but hadn't been able to make out any car following him. So much for his superior surveillance skills.

The park was still relatively empty. A few joggers were making their rounds, and here and there people were walking their dogs, but the playground was completely empty. Shawn slowly walked past the sandbox and the monkey bars over towards the small group of willows north of the playground.

Psycho had been right, this was going to be more complicated than the apartment he had visited earlier. The crime scene was outside and it had rained yesterday morning. Also, anybody could have come through here after the police had cleared the crime scene. How was Shawn supposed to know if a piece of paper on the ground was psycho's clue or somebody else's Kit-Kat wrapper?

Shawn stopped short of the group of willows and surveyed the scene.

There was nothing there.

No trace of a crime that had happened there. No evidence markers, no crime scene tape, no blood, no body. Nothing.

Just a group of trees next to a playground.

Shawn stepped under the trees and started to take a closer look around. The earth underneath the trees looked as if a lot of feet had trampled there lately, but that was the only thing that might hint at the fact of this being a crime scene. Shawn didn't even know how much time had passed since the crime had happened.

There was just the trash on the ground which one would expect in the greenery somewhere to the side of a playground. Old newspaper pages, other pieces of scrap paper, candy wrappers, a pacifier and a dirty diaper. Fat chance that Shawn was going to take a closer look at that.

Besides, none of the papers except for the newspaper showed any sign of ever getting wet, so they hadn't been lying here since before yesterday. They weren't connected to whatever crime scene psycho had left here.

Shawn slowly circled each willow, eyes roaming over the bark in search of some sort of message. There were plenty of words and letters left there, but somehow Shawn doubted that psycho was leaving him messages like "_Erin Randy_", "_Bud was here_" or – Shawn's personal favourite – "_Save the trees_" scratched into the bark of a willow. None of the scratched letters was recent, either. But he took notice of each and every scribbling somebody had left. He didn't know yet whether or not one of those things might prove important later on.

All right, this was getting him nowhere.

Shawn stepped out from under the trees and closed his eyes. Psycho wanted him to find the clue, just like he had wanted the police to find the clue. So he hadn't buried it somewhere. It had to be left in plain sight, or somewhere where it could be found by a sharp eye and a sharp mind. Or by psychic abilities, but since Shawn didn't have those he'd have to settle for his eyes and mind.

Eyes still closed, Shawn pictured the scene.

Psycho had murdered the guy in the apartment. Shawn would need to find out who that man had been, and what had happened here in the park. But just for the sake of argument, Shawn figured that psycho had committed another murder here in the park. The police hadn't called him in on either crime, but then again Chief Vick was so fond of saying that crimes could be solved without his help, too.

So he pictured the group of willows with a body lying right in the middle. Now what would a cop investigating the crime scene do?

Cordon off the area.

Take pictures. Well, he didn't have those.

Search the body, then have it transported away by the coroner.

Bag and tag everything at the scene, whether or not it seems connected to the crime.

Search for the murder weapon.

Try and reconstruct the crime, as well as the entry and exit way of the perpetrator.

But psycho had been sure that the police hadn't found the clue, so it hadn't been just lying around on the ground, and it hadn't been on the victim either. It probably wasn't buried somewhere around here and it wasn't on the bark of any of the trees, either.

_Focus, Shawn._

Of all the times, this was the worst possible moment in which he wanted his inner voice to sound like his Dad.

_A crime scene is always bigger than you anticipate, Shawn. You have to think in all dimensions when you investigate the crime scene. Length, width, height and time._

Shawn opened his eyes.

Damn it, psycho was one clever bastard.

Shawn nearly laughed out loud as he started scanning the crowns of the trees. It took a few moments, but then he found a small patch of green on one of the branches that was a different kind of green. An artificial kind of green. A green plastic baggie. And psycho really wondered why the police hadn't found his clue?

Shawn fixed the position of the plastic bag in his mind, then he hurried over towards the willow and started climbing it. There were no low branches for him to use as leverage, but there was a stump where one lower branch had been sawed off which Shawn put his foot on and used to boost himself up to the upper branches. The climb wasn't easy, a child couldn't have made it an accidentally found the plastic bag, but it wasn't an impossible climb for an adult in good physical condition. Just an exhausting climb.

After a few minutes of climbing and shimmying along the branches, Shawn could reach the plastic bag if he stretched his hand. But he had misjudged the distance, he needed to stretch farther than he had anticipated. Just as his fingers closed around the plastic bag, his left leg slipped from the branch and he lost his balance.

Quickly, Shawn palmed the bag and tried to hold on to the branch with both hands, but his balance was gone and before he could close his right hand around the branch his right leg also slid away from the branch.

Shawn tried to reach up and grab the branch with his free hand, but he missed, and under the pull of his whole body weight his left hand also slipped from the branch. Shawn closed his eyes as gravity did its job and the ground rushed up to meet him.


	5. 8:50 to 10:30am: Timeout

**Chapter 5 – 8:50-10:30: Timeout**

The fall wasn't long. Right after Shawn closed his eyes, his left foot already touched the ground. Unfortunately, it hit the ground at an angle his foot wasn't meant to be bent into. White hot pain seared up his ankle and calf, and with a grunt of pain Shawn sagged in on himself as the rest of his body followed gravity's call and unceremoniously dropped to the floor, putting more weight onto his awkwardly bent ankle.

Immediately, Shawn curled up on his side and pulled his knee up against his chest so that he could reach for his ankle with both hands.

Boy, that hurt.

Shawn was no stranger to the phenomenon of falling out of trees, and this fall didn't even make the top ten of tree-falls he had experienced in his lifetime (number one still being the famous tree house jump of 1987 which had landed him in the hospital with a compound fracture of the tibia in his right leg). But still it hurt. Like hell.

After a few moments of deep breathing, Shawn slowly opened his eyes and let go of his ankle. Fortunately, the park was still empty and no curious bystanders had seen his rather plump fall out of the tree. Slowly, using the trunk of the willow he had just fallen out of for support, Shawn got to his feet. The pain in his left ankle had receded somewhat, but it still lingered below the surface, only waiting for Shawn to put some weight on his foot so that it could flare up again full force. And the pull of his whole body weight hadn't exactly helped his left arm, either. The shoulder didn't hurt as badly as the ankle, but it made for a nice composition of different pain levels coming together in one body.

Standing on one leg, Shawn awkwardly bent down and picked up the little green plastic bag which he had dropped during his fall. It was maybe as big as his palm and he couldn't see through the green plastic, but he could feel something like a stiff piece of paper inside.

Shawn actually wanted nothing more than to limp to his bike and go home, but he needed to make sure that he hadn't risked his neck for a piece of trash which the wind had blown up into the tree. Now that would be a story his Dad would gladly tell his ex-cop poker buddies.

The bag was tied with a knot, but Shawn made short work of it and carefully peered inside.

If this was a piece of trash blown up into the tree by accident, it was the strangest thing to throw away in a park. Shawn seriously doubted that somebody threw away Polaroid pictures just like that. Actually, Shawn doubted that people wrapped Polaroid pictures in plastic bags and then threw them away. Carefully, he pulled the Polaroid out of the plastic bag.

It was just a single picture, and Shawn was pretty sure that his expression when he looked at it was completely dumbfounded. Psycho had sent him three printed out pictures in the span of four hours, all of them in different qualities, but all of them clear enough to make out the necessary details. So why was the Polaroid he was sending him as a clue now totally blank?

Well, not so much blank as black. It had the typical white frame of a Polaroid photograph, but the picture as such was entirely black. Black as if something had gone wrong with the exposure. Or black as if somebody had taken a picture of something…well, black.

Shawn stared at the picture for a few long moments, then he put it back into the plastic bag and put it into his inside pocket along with the printed out photographs he had received earlier.

First a jack of spades, and now a black photograph? Whatever plane of thinking psycho's mind worked on, Shawn didn't understand how a playing card and a photograph without a picture were supposed to give him a clue about anything.

Shawn checked his watch. 8:45 am. He had until 10:30 am until psycho would call again, which gave him a chance to sit down and think about everything that had happened in the past five hours. It would definitely be enough time to figure out who the two victims had been, and maybe knowing that would get him closer to finding out who psycho really was.

He drew a deep breath and carefully put some of his weight on his left foot. Immediately, the pain flared up again, but if he didn't put his heel on the ground it should work well enough to get him back to his bike. Or so Shawn hoped. Clenching his teeth, he set off.

It was high-degree limping, it was undignified and looked ridiculous, not to mention that it took ages and still hurt like hell, but finally Shawn reached his bike and with a grateful sigh he sat down on the saddle. He'd be back at his apartment at nine that should give him ninety minutes to mentally catch up on what had happened this morning. It was time he definitely needed to get his head clear again.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The apartment on Franklin Boulevard had belonged to one Devon Schroeder, 32 years old. He had earned his law degree in September of 2005 and had moved to Santa Barbara a few weeks later to work at a big law-firm in town. Most likely he was doing the ground work for the lawyers who already had their names on the door– copying, filing, making coffee. At least his name didn't appear listed in the court records as the defense attorney in any case of the past two years, which told Shawn that the law firm hadn't let Schroeder lead his own cases yet.

The day before yesterday, Schroeder had been found dead in his apartment by a nosy neighbour who had wondered about the open front door of the apartment. He had been stabbed in the chest repeatedly and had died of the blood loss. There had been no sign of forced entry.

It had taken Shawn exactly five minutes on the internet to find that information, and he didn't like it. It meant that psycho was a cold blooded killer. Killing with a knife was far more personal than using a gun, not to mention that it required more physical strength. And it was far messier, the killer had to stand closer to the victim and chances were higher that the perp ended up covered in blood.

What worried Shawn even more was what had happened in the park.

Six days ago, the body of Ivan Bergstrom had been found lying in the middle of the group of willows by an early morning runner. Bergstrom had been shot twice in the chest at some point during the night before he was found. The police was treating it as a mugging gone bad because the victim's wallet including crash and credit cards, his watch and other jewellery were missing. Bergstrom had been the owner of two coffee shops in the city. He hadn't been rich, but off well enough to make a potential target for a mugging. His ex-wife as well as all his friends had claimed that he didn't have any enemies, there had been nothing suspicious about his business, so the police were ruling him as an accidental victim.

The gun hadn't been found, but the bullets hadn't led the police to anything, either. The investigation had hit a dead end, but Shawn knew the crime labs were notoriously backlogged, so it was entirely possible that the police were still waiting for some test results.

What really worried Shawn about this was something different. Bergstrom and Schroeder weren't connected in any way. There was nothing Shawn uncovered in his internet research that would suggest the two of them had ever met, or that their paths had ever crossed even accidentally. They had lived in different parts of the city, had worked in different parts of the city, their whole lives had been circling around different orbits. And that was something to really worry about. Because if Schroeder and Bergstrom had nothing in common, it meant that the probably weren't connected to psycho, either. Finding out more about the two victims could be helpful, but Shawn doubted that figuring out who their dry-cleaner was, who delivered their pizza or where they shopped for shoes would lead him to figure out psycho's identity.

Psycho had killed two people seemingly at random.

And he had killed them in different ways. The first he had shot, the second he had stabbed.

Why would somebody who was so keen on the police recognising his work and finding the connections make it so difficult for them to do so? Two unconnected victims, two different MOs. And two entirely different settings. Bergstrom had been killed in the park, in a public area, and Schroeder had been killed in his own apartment, which immediately suggested some sort of personal motive to the police. There had been no sign of a forced entry at Schroeder's apartment.

Had psycho not informed Shawn of the murders and the clues that were supposed to tie them together, even Shawn wouldn't have made this connection. The police wouldn't have made the connection even if they had found the clues during their initial investigation. Because they just didn't make sense.

Which was the next big problem. The clues. The jack of spades had been vague enough, but Shawn had hoped that the second clue would put the playing card into perspective. But no such luck. And now he had to find out what a playing card and a black Polaroid picture were supposed to tell him. Shawn didn't see a connection, and neither did he see how those two clues were supposed to lead him to psycho. He had no idea at all.

A playing card and a Polaroid, where was the connection? Both were pictures of sorts. Well yeah, that helped a lot. Pictures. Great clue. The _Mona Lisa_ was a picture, too. Shawn doubted that he'd find that picture amongst his next clues, but it would be just as puzzling if it were.

Shawn hated being clueless. Though according to Psycho, he wasn't. According to psycho, he had two perfectly good clues to work with. So why didn't they make sense?

With a sigh, Shawn leaned back in his chair and reached for his coffee cup. He was far too tired for this. The simple truth was that Shawn wasn't at his best if he was torn so abruptly from his sleep. His mind was still working, of course, just not with the same speed and efficiency as it usually did.

But maybe all that was because it just didn't make sense. Whatever it was psycho wanted, Shawn didn't understand it.

He was just worried that telling psycho this wouldn't be the best thing to do. Shawn was supposed to figure out the clues and if he didn't, psycho would go after his father again. Which meant Shawn needed to figure out the clues.

The playing card and the Polaroid were lying on the table in front of him. At the time Shawn had thought it fun to lift the fingerprinting kit from his father's old police things, just to see if his old man would even notice it had gone missing, but it had come in handy. Or not, depending on the perspective. He had dusted the playing card, the Polaroid, both envelopes and all printed out photographs for fingerprints, but the only thing he had found were his own prints in the places where he had touched the items.

It had been too much to hope for, finding a print, but Shawn had needed to try at least.

Tiredly, Shawn ran his hand over his face in frustration. It was 9:35 am now, so he still had 55 minutes left before psycho called him again.

At that moment, his cell phone rang.

Shawn actually flinched as the device's display started flashing and the tinny music started to ring through the room, though he immediately knew that it wasn't psycho calling him. It wasn't _La Cucaracha_ playing, so it was a caller who was on Shawn's contact list. Still, his heart was beating a little too fast when he picked up the phone and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Shawn, I want an explanation."

Shawn groaned and sank a little lower in his chair. "Dad, not now."

"Yes, now. You called me at 5 in the morning to check on how I'm doing. You never call to ask how I'm doing. And you never call in the middle of the night unless you're in trouble, or unless it's the hospital calling about you. So I ask myself what made you call me just a few minutes after somebody set fire to my kitchen."

"Fire fighters ruled it arson?" Not that Shawn needed any confirmation on that.

"Yes, they ruled it arson" Henry replied impatiently. "Bastard jimmied the lock on the door, spread the contents of the paper bin over the table and counter and lit them up. Didn't use an accelerant, though, which is why the fire didn't spread quickly. Now you know what happened, it's about time I get my question answered."

Shawn breathed a deep sigh. "Listen Dad, I told you. I had a bad feeling and I thought I should maybe check in on you."

"Don't give me that crap, son. I don't believe that you had a premonition of sorts, just as little as I believe in all your idiotic psychic displays. So spill the truth, all right?"

"Dad, let's talk about this later."

"No, we're going to talk now, Shawn!"

What was Shawn supposed to say? There's a psycho calling me, sending me on a clue chase all over the city, and if I don't play along he's going to go after you? Oh, and by the way, he's the one who set your kitchen on fire, just to prove a point. Fat chance he was going to tell his father that, he'd never hear the end of that tirade.

"Shawn!" Henry pressed impatiently.

"Sorry Dad, connection's breaking up." Shawn started making throaty noises into the mouthpiece. "Can't…hear you…"

And he disconnected. His father would be furious, no doubt about that. This was heading towards a conversation Shawn really didn't want to have. But he needed to solve his little clue-puzzle first, once all this was over he'd be ready to face yet another of Henry Spencer's patented outbreaks. A good sign that his father was going to be furious was that he didn't try to call back. His Dad wasn't stupid, Shawn was sure that he hadn't bought the bad connection line just for a second, but the fact that he didn't call back meant that he was pissed.

Shawn forcefully pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the clues again. He'd worry about his Dad's reaction when the time came. Right now he needed to worry about his Dad staying alive long enough to have a reaction.

Shawn stared at the items on the table in front of him until his vision blurred. There had to be something he kept missing.

_La Cucaracha_ snapped him out of his thoughts. Shawn checked his watch, then answered the phone.

"You're 45 minutes early."

There was a metallic chuckle. "I was getting a little impatient. And you left the playground so quickly, so I thought you might not need as much time as I initially granted you. We don't want to let the game go boring by long pauses in between."

So psycho knew when he had come home. Again. But this time there hadn't been a package left on his doorstep to make Shawn doubt whether or not psycho had been able to follow him at all.

"The spirits of the trees guided me. Willows are very strong-spirited trees, you know. There's just one question I have."

"You always start these conversations with a question, Shawn. I slowly start thinking that you can't be as good as your track record suggests, not with the number of questions you ask."

"Oh, but every kindergarten teacher will tell you that asking questions is a sign of a quick and sharp mind."

There was a moment's pause. "You're comparing yourself to a toddler of kindergarten age?"

"Well, not necessarily kindergarten age, but I prefer the light-hearted openness of children of all ages. You see, they're normally pretty bright, and they don't need to murder people to start a clue hunt."

"You're stalling again, Shawn. I tend to see stalling as a sign of you not finding my clue. Did you break the rules?"

"No!"

Another chuckle. "Good. Then I take it you kept in mind that one of the rules, probably the most important rule of them all, is not to warn your father or anybody else of what is going on?"

Shawn drew a deep breath. Did psycho know that he had talked to his father? His eyes nervously roamed over the windows. He lived on a second floor apartment, there was no way psycho could see him from the street. But there were plenty of buildings across the street, if psycho was watching him from there somewhere he could have seen him talking on the phone.

"Shawn? Did you keep the rule in mind?"

"I didn't warn anybody, all right? But I can't stop people from calling me."

"You can stop answering. No, let me rephrase that. You _will_ stop answering. I assume you have caller ID?"

"Yes. About that, if you could give me your name, I'd add you to my contact list. I never know if it's you that's calling or if it's a telemarketer. I tend to be rather impolite to telemarketers, and I'd hate to let a misunderstanding cast a shadow on our otherwise so unblemished relationship."

"Let's talk about the clue, Shawn." Psycho's voice was getting cold and tight. "What did you find?"  
"A Polaroid in a little green plastic bag. The picture wasn't very telling, I have to admit. I take it you don't make your money in taking photographs."

Psycho chuckled. "You're not going to get me to answer that question, Shawn. But it's good to know you found the clue. Now there's only one more clue left."

"Wait a second" Shawn interrupted. "Your clues don't really make much sense, you know that, right? I mean, a playing card and a black Polaroid? They don't really tell much of a story, except if you're hiding in a dark casino. Are you hiding in a dark casino? Because then we can spare us another merry round of rushing through the city."

Psycho chuckled again. "There's one last clue left, Shawn. After that, I promise you'll be able to see things in the right light. But now it's time for your next set of instructions."

Shawn drew a deep breath. "All right, I'm listening."

"The last clue is the most difficult one to acquire. It belongs in between the clues you already found. Unfortunately, this is the one clue which the police found during their investigation."

Shawn laughed mirthlessly. "Well, great for you. Why didn't you ask them to play your little game if they already found one of the clues?"

"Because they didn't recognise it for what it was! They found it, they put it amongst the evidence, but they didn't see it as a clue. So now it's your turn."

"If it's amongst the evidence, I'll have to go to the police station. Didn't your rules say something about not going to the police station? Just checking to see that we're on the same page here."

"This is the one exception to the rule. You will not be punished for going to the police station, but you will be closely watched. So I wouldn't attempt to warn off an of your officer friends. Otherwise I'll have to pay a visit to your father, as soon as the insurance agent who's currently with him leaves."

Something tightened in Shawn's chest. How could the bastard know that he had talked to his father just a few minutes ago when at the same time he knew that his father was talking to an insurance agent right now?

"All right", he forced out from between clenched teeth. "What do you want me to do?"

"Go to the police station. Find the clue the police missed. The Hankinson case. You have until 11:30 am."

And once more, the line went dead.


	6. 9:50 to 11:30 am: The Third Challenge

**Chapter 6 – 9:50-11:30 am: The Third Challenge**

Shawn made it to the police station in a little less than fifteen minutes. His mind was still reeling from the phone call. Psycho was a pretty clever maniac; Shawn had to grant him that. He was guarded in what he revealed, and no amount of subtle baiting had brought him to reveal any useful information about his identity so far. Shawn had talked to the guy five times, but in fact he knew just as much about him as he had known after the first call. What little information he had didn't provide any help in figuring out psycho's identity.

Psycho was intelligent. He had planned all this thoroughly, and had done quite some research. He had checked Shawn's case record, he knew where his father lived, knew where Gus lived, and Shawn was sure that this probably wasn't the end of what psycho knew about him.

There had been no inflection or dialect in psycho's voice, nothing that would have set him apart from millions of other inhabitants of California. Nothing to detect psycho's origin. The only thing Shawn was sure of was that his unknown caller was sophisticated. His choice of words, the way he phrased his sentences, all that led Shawn to believe that psycho had a solid background education.

But that was all the info Shawn was able to deduce about psycho. And it didn't tell him anything about who psycho was.

Hesitantly, Shawn took off his helmet and went over towards the front doors of the police station. Normally, Shawn entered the station all smiles and confident stride, but this morning he was more than just a little tentative as he climbed the steps into the building. In part this had to do with his still aching ankle, which sent a bolt of pain up his leg whenever he put his heel on the ground, but mostly it had to do with the fact that for once in his life, Shawn didn't want to be here.

This wasn't about getting a case, or solving a case. At least, not like it normally was. This time, Shawn was supposed to get into a station full of cops, all of whom knew him, to get into the evidence room and go through all the evidence on a case, and he was supposed to do all this without being seen, noticed, or questioned about his reasons for being there. Right. He had no idea how he was supposed to do that. He considered himself pretty resourceful under most circumstances, but right now he simply had no idea.

Shawn hesitated before he pulled the front door open. The evidence room was in the basement, which meant that if he was lucky he'd only have to pass the desk sergeant to get there. Of course, if his luck didn't hold he'd probably find Lassiter, Juliet and Chief Vick downstairs bringing somebody in or out of the holding cells. But damn it, he had been awake since four this morning, he had been all over the city at least twice and a crazy psychopath was threatening to kill his father, Shawn was entitled to some luck right now, wasn't he?

Shawn took a deep breath and pushed through the doors. The station was in its usual pre-lunchtime state. There was no big buzz in the entrance hall, but everybody who was walking past had a sense of purpose to their steps – getting whatever it was they were doing finished so that they could get to lunch soon. The desk sergeant was busy, receiver of the phone tucked under his ear, taking notes and at the same time talking to a man who was standing in front of his desk.

Nevertheless, he looked up as Shawn entered the station. After all, that was what a desk sergeant was supposed to do, keep track of who entered and left the station. As he recognized Shawn, he raised his free hand in a short wave of acknowledgement. Shawn waved back, then made some wild, random and absolutely meaningless gestures which he hoped suggested some sort of meaning and purpose to his being there.

The message he was aiming for was "_Don't worry, I'm here on highly official business, Chief Vick knows all about it, in fact she was the one who asked for me, I only need ten minutes alone in the basement then I'll be gone again, oh, and if Detective Lassiter shows up here in the next few minutes, could you please stall him?_"

The desk sergeant nodded at him and then went back to focusing on his phone call and the man in front of his desk. So Shawn guessed that his message had gotten across. At least his hand signals didn't seem to have conveyed the message "_I'll be going down to the evidence room to steal some evidence from an unsolved murder case which will probably get me in real trouble if anybody ever finds out so just go on ahead and finish whatever it is you're doing and pretend you never saw me._"

But maybe the desk sergeant just thought he had been trying to catch a fly. But actually that didn't matter for as long as he was still busy. Shawn quickly checked once more that the sergeant was looking the other way, then he quickly ducked into the doorway that led to the stairs to the basement.

With any luck, the desk sergeant would have all but forgotten that Shawn had even been there once he finished his calls and conversations.

Shawn quietly snuck down the stairs, ears perked for any sign of somebody else being down here. But just as he had hoped, he finally got a lucky break. There was nobody around on his way to or from the holding cells, Shawn's way was clear.

But that was only the first step to getting into the evidence room, and he had yet to overcome the biggest obstacle in his way.

Erin Brickowski. The lady in charge of the evidence room.

Erin Brickowski had been working for the SBPD for as long as Shawn could remember. Even as a small boy Shawn had already known her as the person in charge of all evidence here at the station. And even back then, she had looked just the same – grey hair in a tight bun, a face with a perpetual frown etched onto its bulldog-like countenance, her thin and gangly body clad in wide blouses and skirts with flower patterns that never matched. She had been here for so long that if anybody told him that she had already been sitting in the windowless room in the basement by the time the SBPD moved in here, Shawn would have believed them.

From eight in the morning to six in the evening, with the exception of a one hour lunch-break at one in the afternoon, she was in charge of who was allowed to enter the evidence room and who wasn't.

And Erin Brickowski hated Shawn.

Well, actually the Spencer she hated was Henry, but in this case the hatred seemed hereditary. Shawn didn't know what exactly this was about, but there had been one incident back when his father had still been a cop when a piece of evidence in one of Henry's cases had gone missing. It had shown up again after a couple of days. It had been a simple case of misfiling, a human error that could have happened to anybody, and in the end no harm had been done. But until the piece of evidence had been found again, Henry's fuse had been extremely short and he had exploded more than once about Erin's mistake.

Ever since then Erin had hated Henry Spencer. Shawn had seen the venomous looks she had given him whenever their paths had crossed in the station. Knowing his father and how invested he had always been in his cases, he had surely reminded Erin about her mistake unnecessarily often. And Erin on her part seemed to have been equally resentful.

Over the months and years, Erin had started glaring at Shawn with the same expression she normally reserved for his father, even though Shawn had never done her any harm. But to be honest, she had scared him a little when he had still been smaller, and he wasn't all that sad that his current employment with the SBPD brought him into the lucky position that he never had to log any evidence.

Until now.

Well, officially he still had absolutely no business being here, but he needed to get into the evidence room. And he didn't have time to wait until Erin would leave for her lunch break.

Shawn sighed and ran his hands through his hair. It was quarter past ten already, he didn't have any more time to waste.

He spun around as he heard steps coming down the stairs behind him. It was Buzz McNabb coming down the stairs, a couple of forms in his hand, whistling lowly as he descended the steps. He caught sight of Shawn and stopped whistling.

"Hey Shawn."

"Buzz, how are you doing?" Shawn asked, a half-hearted smile plastered on his face. But he was starting to see an opportunity here.

"I'm good, thanks. But what are you doing down here?"

"Waiting for you."

A frown appeared on Buzz' face. "For me? But…how did you know?"

Shawn tipped his finger against his temple. "Psychic. I had the feeling I'd meet you down here, so I saved myself the time of searching for you upstairs. I need your help."

Buzz nodded. "Sure. I just need to get some evidence for Detective Lassiter, but it should only be a few minutes."

"Actually, that's exactly what I need help with. I need to check the evidence for a case."

The frown deepened. "What case?"

"The Hankinson case."

Buzz shook his head. "I didn't know you were working that case."

"I am", Shawn lied smoothly, though he inwardly cringed. "The Chief just didn't want to blast it all around the station. But I need to see the evidence, see if I get any psychic vibrations from it."

Buzz was clearly undecided. "Listen Shawn, if Chief Vick wants you to look at the evidence, why don't you get her to fill out an evidence request. It would only take a few minutes."

Shawn shook his head. No way he was going to take this to the Chief and face her questions about it. It would all blow up in his face.

"No can do, Buzz. Chief is awfully busy these days."

Buzz sighed. "Listen Shawn, I'd gladly do you all kinds of favours, but this…this is something different. The rules about evidence are pretty strict, and for a reason. I'd be violating protocols, it's against procedures."

"Listen Buzz, it's just a tiny favour. It'll save me a whole lot of time and trouble, and there won't be any problems for anybody, I promise."

"The Chief will bust me back to traffic duty if I knowingly violate the standard procedures…"

"Just the one favour, Buzz. I didn't exactly think about standard procedures either when I rushed to your apartment to stop that psychopath with the gun from killing you!"

Shawn hated doing that to Buzz. He liked the young cop, he really did. Yanking his chain occasionally was one thing, but under normal circumstances Shawn would have never used the events of that night to make Buzz do his bidding. Never. The whole affair about his calling the stress-hotline and about being found held at gunpoint by a lunatic who wanted him to commit suicide had been bad enough for Buzz, not to mention really embarrassing. Under normal circumstances Shawn would have never mentioned it again, let alone used it in any way.

But these weren't normal circumstances. Shawn wished they were, but they simply weren't.

Buzz had paled a little at Shawn's words, but immediately his cheeks had flushed a bright red and he was no longer meeting Shawn's eyes directly.

"Buzz", Shawn continued in a much lower voice. "I didn't mean it that way. But believe me that this is extremely important. And extremely urgent. I need to get into the evidence room right now. I promise I'll explain it all to you in detail, but right now I simply don't have the time. You won't get into any trouble, you have my word on it. Can you do me that favour?"

Buzz sighed. "All right. But I don't like it."

"Thank you Buzz."

Together the two men went around the bend in the corridor and towards the evidence room. Buzz knocked and a moment later the door was buzzed open from inside.

Erin Brickowski was seated on a desk next to the door, and while she nodded politely at Buzz her face darkened into a scowl as her eyes fell on Shawn.

"Officer?", she asked in a less than enthusiastic voice, though she didn't take her narrowed eyes from Shawn.

Buzz handed her the forms he had brought. "Hello Mrs Brickowski. I need to check out some evidence for Detective Lassiter."

Brickowski checked the forms, signed them and put them on the desk beside her. "That's the Castellani case, section C is down to the back shelf and to the left. I'm going to get the inventory list."

She started rummaging around in a file cabinet, but stopped as Shawn started to follow Buzz to the back of the room.

"Officer, why is that civilian with you?"

Shawn had never heard the word civilian uttered with such venom. Buzz stopped short and looked at Shawn a little insecurely. Shawn just stared back, his heart beating fast in his chest. After a moment that seemed like an eternity, Buzz turned towards Brickowski.

"He's an official consultant Mrs Brickowski. The Chief is aware that he's here."

Brickowski nodded courtly, though her face was still scowling, and went back to the filing cabinet. "As long as he doesn't touch anything. Go get your evidence, I'll have the inventory in a moment."

With an inaudible sigh, Shawn followed Buzz to the back of the room. When they were out of earshot, Buzz stopped Shawn with a quick movement of his hand.

"I'll give you two minutes. We're going to have to leave together, so whatever it is you're looking for, you'd better hurry."

Shawn nodded. "I will. Thanks."

Buzz left towards the Cs and Shawn quickly hurried towards the shelf that housed the case files starting with H. As much as Shawn hated bureaucracy, at this very moment he was eternally glad that it enabled him to find the evidence from the Hankinson case quickly.

He didn't know what kind of a crime had happened to poor Mr. or Mrs. Hankinson, but judging by the precedents he was assuming murder right now. And as in all murder investigations, CSI had practically bagged and tagged everything that wasn't nailed down.

Quickly, Shawn sifted through the contents of the large box, looking for something of which he didn't even know what it was. And he only had a little less than two minutes left. Well, if that wasn't just peachy. What was a clue comparable to a playing card and a black Polaroid? Whatever the clue was, it had to be an everyday item which had seemed out of place at the scene. Which was the problem, because right now the items weren't on the scene anymore.

Most evidence bags were labeled "living room", so Shawn assumed the murder had happened there. But that didn't exactly help him finding out what exactly the clue was. And the box was full with stuff.

Some strands of hair, carpet fibers, sofa cushions with stains on them, all evidence that had been taken for forensic testing Shawn could immediately discard. But there was much more. A diary, a notebook, a bottle of pills for allergies as well as a couple of leaflets on fur-allergies, a writing pad and a phonebook, a calling card, a pack of cigarettes, two CD-ROMs, a glass, a can of soda and other strange assorted stuff. Shawn suppressed a sigh. This wasn't easy. It wasn't easy at all, not with CSI bagging and tagging the entire contents of a working desk as it seemed.

Shawn took the calling card again and read its contents. Vincent Brannan, Dr. Vet., followed by a downtown address.

Hold your horses. And please, don't take that literally. Not again.

A veterinarian, if that wasn't interesting. Why would somebody have a calling card for a veterinarian if they had a fur allergy? Just recently diagnosed, judged by the fact that the victim had held on to the informative leaflets and had kept those together with the medication. Shawn gave the items a quick once over. There was no trace of pet fur on any of the other items, not even on the stained sofa cushion that didn't look as if it had been washed at all since the turn of the century. So there had been no pet Hankinson had needed to get rid of because he had developed an allergy.

With a pet fur allergy and no pet, why would Hankinson have needed a veterinarian's calling card?

Shawn heard Buzz' steps further down behind the filing cabinets and he knew he needed to make a choice. He didn't have the time to think about this for any longer. Whether or not that calling card was really the clue, he needed to make a decision now.

Quickly, Shawn pocketed the evidence bag that contained the calling card and put the box with the remaining evidence back into the shelf. Just as he turned around, Buzz came towards him.

"Finished?"

Shawn quickly nodded. "Yes. Thanks Buzz. You really helped me out here."

Buzz just nodded, still not meeting Shawn's eyes directly. "I need to get this up to Detective Lassiter."

"Sure, let's leave."

Shawn followed Buzz towards Erin Brickowski's desk and watched how the elderly lady compared the items in the box to the inventory list. It seemed to take forever, and all the while he felt the evidence bag burning a hole in his pocket.

This was a whole different league than lying about being a psychic. This was stealing evidence in a murder investigation. This was a serious offense, and if Lassiter ever found out about it he'd gladly lock Shawn up and flush the key down the toilet. Not to mention what would happen if his Dad found out. He'd probably stand in front of his cell the entire day and yell at Shawn, just to make his jail-time worse.

But he had to do this, because the alternative wasn't even debatable. He just needed to stop psycho, then he could explain everything to everybody. He just needed a little more time.

Eventually, Buzz and Erin finished signing out the evidence, and Shawn had to slow his steps down so that he wouldn't run along the corridor towards the stairs. Once they were back in the entrance hall, Shawn turned towards Buzz once more. "Thanks Buzz. I really appreciate it."

"Listen Shawn, are you really sure that the Chief is all right with you going through that evidence on your own? I mean, if you got any psychic vibes from the evidence, don't you want to go upstairs to tell Detective Lassiter, or Detective O'Hara about it?"

Shawn shook his head. "Didn't get anything specific, unfortunately. But I…I need to meditate on it a little, it's all confusing."

"Shall I tell the detectives that you're going to drop by later with whatever you've gotten?"

"No!" Seeing the surprised look on Buzz' face, Shawn quickly dropped his voice. "No, that's all right. Let them work on their cases in peace, I'm not so sure what will come out of my meditation. Just…forget I was here, all right? Thanks Buzz."

And without waiting for an answer, Shawn turned around and left the building again. He needed to get home and try to figure out those clues. And he needed to figure out what he would do if he had grabbed the wrong clue from the evidence box. Preferably before psycho called him again.

Shawn straddled his bike and put on his helmet. He was just about to turn the key in the ignition when somebody called his name.

"Shawn!"

He turned and saw Juliet hurrying down the steps of the police department. His heart made a leap in his chest. Buzz must have told her about his visit to the evidence room, and if he started a conversation with her now it would only lead to questions after questions, all of which Shawn didn't feel ready to answer. Couldn't answer, because somehow psycho was watching him and if he caught him talking to Juliet, his father would pay the price.

"Shawn, wait up!"

No way.

"I need to talk to you!"

Shawn quickly started the engine and pulled his bike out of the parking lot. He didn't look back, but he was sure that Juliet had stopped mid-stride in the middle of the parking lot, staring after his disappearing form.

Half an hour, and he had pissed off two people he considered his friends. Add just another few hours of his day so far, and he could put his father on the list of people he pissed off, as well. Not to mention psycho. Somehow along the way, he must have pissed off psycho as well, otherwise he wouldn't have the day from hell now.

Without consciously thinking about it, Shawn drove towards the office. It was closer than his apartment, and he was carrying all the clues with him in his inside pocket, anyway.

He parked the bike in front of the office, unlocked the door and went inside. Before he even had the chance to take off his jacket or put the clues onto his desk, his cell phone rang again.

_La Cucaracha_.

He really, really hated that song.

Shawn sank down in his chair and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"What?", he snarled.

Psycho just chuckled. "You don't seem to be in the best mood."

"No, I'm not! Hurrying all over the city on some sick bastard's schedule tends to do that to me! Being forced to ignore my friends and lie to them tends to do that to me! So why don't we just get it over with and you ask me about the clue, I tell you that I found a veterinarian's calling card amongst the possessions of a fur allergic, you chuckle at my ignorance about your ingenious clues and rattle off the next set of instructions or whatever it is you have in store for me now. Because frankly, I'm fed up with your sick little game!"

There was a moment of silence in the line. "Are you finished ranting?" Psycho asked after a few seconds. "Because we're wasting time here. You found the clue, which is why I will forgive you your little outburst just now. So now you have everything you need to figure out how to get your one chance at taking me in."

"What?"

Psycho chuckled again. "You found the clues. Now you only need to figure them out. Shouldn't be a problem for somebody with your abilities."

"Yeah, I don't know what you did to the things you left, but I have to tell you I don't really get any vibrations from any of them. Maybe we should try showing them to the police again."

"The police had their chance!", psycho all but yelled. "Remember the rules, Shawn. And remember what's at stake."

"You don't need to remind me of that, really not. But fact is that a Polaroid, a veterinarian's calling card and a playing card aren't really telling much."

Shawn didn't know what reaction he had expected, but it definitely hadn't been another chuckle. "I was afraid you'd say that. I had such high hopes for you, but it seems that I overestimated you."

Shawn swallowed but didn't say anything. He remembered the rules. If psycho thought that he couldn't figure out the clues, it would mean another round of punishment, and that was something Shawn wanted to avoid at any cost.

"I'm just saying I need a little more time to go through what I've got."

"You've got a bit more time for solving those clues. But since I was afraid that you wouldn't be able to figure out my clues in time, I left you something that will help you see things in the right light."

Shawn's heart started beating fast in his chest. "I thought you said the calling card was the last clue."

"I thought it would be, but you pointed out repeatedly that you weren't able to figure out the clues. So while it went against all my principles, I left you another hint. Consider it a little bonus round in our game."

Shawn drew a deep breath and ran his free hand through his hair. "All right, what do you want me to do?"

"Go find the final clue. You have until 1:00 pm to figure out the clues, and that's the last deadline you're given. I will call you at 1:00 pm sharp, and if you haven't figured out the clues by then, you lose the game. You do remember what will happen if you lose the game, don't you?"

"Yes." Shawn brought out from behind clenched teeth.

Psycho chuckled again. "Good. Now you'd better leave the office and get back on your bike. You don't have a minute to waste. The address where you find the final clue is 701 Park Lane Drive. The second floor apartment. But I think you already knew that."

The line went dead, and Shawn just stared at the slim black phone in his hand for a full minute while the dial tone rang in his ears. Then he sprang into action, nearly tripping over his own feet in his rush to get up, put on his jacket and run to the door at the same time. He didn't lock the office door behind himself, in fact he wasn't even sure if the door closed fully after him, but he didn't care. It didn't matter right now.

All that mattered was getting to Park Lane Drive as quickly as possible.

701 Park Lane Drive was Gus' address.


	7. 11:30am to 1:00pm: The Key

**Chapter 7 – 11:30 am – 1.00 pm: ****The Key**

Shawn drove in a haze, speed limits be damned. He wasn't consciously aware of anything until he pulled his bike up in front of Gus' apartment building. All he did remember were flashes of red lights and car horns blaring at him, but he didn't give a damn about that right now. There was only one thought on his mind.

Gus.

If psycho had hurt his friend, Shawn would…

Shawn didn't know what he would do. He didn't even want to consider the possibility that something might have happened to Gus. It just could be.

Of course psycho had proven again and again what he was capable of, but Gus just couldn't be…it couldn't be true. Period. No discussion about it. Gus was fine, there simply was no alternative.

Shawn quickly pulled his keys out of the ignition and stormed over towards the entrance to Gus' apartment building. But even before he reached the front door, his eyes fell on something that made his gut clench painfully. There, right in the "no parking" zone in front of Gus' house stood a car. A car Shawn immediately recognised. Lassiter and Juliet's unmarked police car.

Shawn started running.

The front door was unlocked, and it smashed into the wall when Shawn pushed it open. He took the stairs two steps at once, nearly falling as his feet slipped while taking a turn. He reached the second floor in record time and had to stop himself from crashing headfirst into Lassiter, who was standing in the doorway to Gus' apartment. Juliet was standing next to him, blocking Shawn's view of the interior of Gus' apartment.

Both Lassiter and Juliet turned around when Shawn came running up the stairs as if the devil was personally chasing him. Shawn had a lot of questions he wanted, no _needed_ to ask, but faced with the two detectives looking at him he couldn't bring himself to ask a single one of them. Something was clenching his chest and throat together, a feeling Shawn hadn't really known until now. He knew that something had happened in Gus' apartment, Shawn simply knew it, but Lassiter's and Juliet's presence opened up much more sinister possibilities of what could have happened. Possibilities Shawn didn't want to consider.

"Spencer?" Lassiter finally brought out. "What in the name of all that's good are you doing here?"

Shawn drew breath to answer, but still the words didn't come out right. What was he supposed to say? _Is Gus dead?_ Not a really good conversation starter. And it contained two words which Shawn never wanted to hear uttered in the same sentence.

It must have been a ridiculous sight of Shawn standing there, gaping like a fish while he searched for the right words, but if Lassiter found it amusing he didn't let it on. Neither did Juliet. There was a worried frown on her face as she watched the fake psychic struggled for both his breath and his composure.

"Spencer?" Lassiter pressed on. "What are you doing here?"

Shawn looked into the head detective's eyes, but was spared the need to answer that question when another voice came from inside the apartment.  
"Shawn? What are you doing here?"

"Gus!"

Shawn pushed past Lassiter and Juliet into the apartment. There was Gus, standing in the middle of the hallway. His tie was hanging with the knot extremely loose, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone and he looked a little pale, but other than that he seemed fine. But there was only one way to find out for sure.

"Gus, are you all right?"

Gus frowned in obvious confusion.

"What?"

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"No."

"No?" No to which of the questions? Shawn roamed his eyes up and down Gus' body in search of any possible injuries. "What does that mean, no?"

"No, I'm not hurt. And no, I'm not all right. Somebody broke into my apartment while I was at work, so I'm definitely not all right!"

"Somebody broke in?"

"Is there an echo around here?" Gus snapped. "Yes, somebody broke into my apartment, which is why I called Juliet and detective Lassiter."

"He called it in just as you were leaving the station." Shawn turned around upon the sound of Juliet's voice. The blonde detective was making her way into the hallway as she spoke. "That's what I was trying to stop you about. Buzz was around when the call came in, he said he had just seen you leave, so I thought you might want to know what had happened, but you took off so fast."

Shawn spun around so that he faced Gus again. "Why didn't you call me?" He asked in a low voice.

"What?"

"Why didn't you call me when you came home and found out about the break-in?"

Gus shrugged somewhat annoyed. "I would have. It's been only half an hour since I came home and it was a bit of a shock to find my apartment in shambles, so I'm sorry if I failed to follow the standard break-in call protocol. I promise it won't happen again."

Shawn tiredly ran his hand over his face. Any more of that and his brain would stop working. The main feeling Shawn was experiencing right now was relief that Gus wasn't harmed, but he couldn't figure this out. So this hadn't been punishment on psycho's part. That Shawn was glad for, but then why break into Gus' apartment in the first place? To leave another hint, that's what psycho had said.

Shawn needed to find that hint now, but he couldn't do that with Lassiter and Juliet here, and not with Gus in the state he was currently in. He needed to tackle those problems first.

Forcing a false smile onto his face, Shawn turned back towards Juliet and Lassiter.

"Everything is under control, Jules, Lassie. I'm sorry you had to come here, it's all been a big misunderstanding."  
Lassiter's eyebrow went up. "A misunderstanding? Guster called us here to report a break-in, how can that be a misunderstanding? I'm fairly sure he was just about to file a report with us."

Shawn shook his head and took a few steps towards the apartment front door, placing himself in a way that Lassiter and Juliet didn't have any chance but to back off a step or two.

"Gus won't file a report."

"You can be damn sure I'll file a report. Somebody broke into my apartment; the insurance won't pay if I don't file a report."

Shawn took another few steps forward so that Juliet and Lassiter ended up standing in front of the apartment door again.

"Nobody broke into this apartment. As I said, it's all been a big misunderstanding. It was me who left the apartment in a bit of a mess, and I'm sure Gus won't file a report against me. Sorry for all the trouble, but no crime happened here except for a violation of the emergency call protocol. I'll see you around."

And before either of the detectives had the chance to say anything, Shawn closed the door in their faces.

"What do you think you're doing?" Gus voice came from behind. Shawn drew a deep breath and turned around to face his irate friend.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Shawn, but I'm going to let Lassiter and Juliet back in now!"

He tried to push past Shawn, but Shawn didn't let him. "And what are you going to do then? Press charges against me?"

Gus drew a deep breath, then put his hands on his hips and looked Shawn straight in the eye. "I don't know what's going on here Shawn, but I know that you didn't break into my apartment. Yes, you let yourself in without my permission on a regular basis, whether or not I'm here, and I know that occasionally you leave a mess behind. But this time we're not talking about popcorn on my sofa or taco sauce all over the kitchen counters, Shawn."

He grabbed Shawn's arm and dragged him into the direction of the living room. "Or what were you doing here? Throwing a party for Guns 'n' Roses?"

Shawn looked at the remains of what had once been Gus' living room. Everything had been tossed and turned; no piece of furniture was where it had previously been. The sofa cushions had been slashed open, the pictures had been taken off the wall and tossed around the room, the TV was broken and shards of broken glass were lying around everywhere. One look around the room told Shawn that not only the picture frames were broken, but also all the lampshades in the room.

"You see what I mean?" Gus pressed. "So if you don't have a very good explanation for why you would leave my apartment in such a state, I will get Juliet and Lassiter back in now so that they can file a report."

Gus turned around but Shawn stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Shawn, let go of me."

Shawn drew a deep breath. "Gus, do you trust me?"

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

Gus shook his head. "What's that got to do with everything?"

"Just answer the question, Gus. Do you trust me?"

"Yes, of course I do. I just don't understand what that has got to do with me not filing a report on the break-in."

"It's really important that the police don't get involved in this. You simply have to trust me on this Gus. I promise I will explain everything, but right now I just can't."

Gus regarded Shawn with a serious look as if trying to judge his sincerity. "Why?"

Shawn sighed. The clock was ticking, and he didn't have the time to discuss this in depth with his friend.

"I can't tell you. But I promise I wouldn't keep this from you if it wasn't important."

"So you know who did this."

It was a statement and not a question, but still Shawn nodded. "Yes. And I promise that once I figured out what this is all about, you can file that report for the insurance."

"And until then I'll have to live in a thrashed apartment?"

Shawn ran a hand through his hair. "The rest of the apartment looks the same?"

"No, just the living room."

"Then it won't be as if you're living on a junkyard, Gus. Just one day, that's all I need. Maybe only until this evening."

While Gus was still thinking about that, Shawn surveyed the mess in the living room. He needed to find that last clue psycho had left before that bastard through of another way of getting to Shawn. He finally needed something that would get him ahead of psycho, he was sick of always being one step behind.

"Shawn, what now?"

Shawn took a few careful steps into the living room and looked around. Somewhere along this mess was what he was searching for, he only needed to find it.

"Shawn, are you even listening to me?"

"Gus, I need your help. Can you tell me what is out of place here?"

"Are you kidding? Everything is out of place."

Shawn shook his head and slowly started walking around the room. "No Gus. Something has to be here which has no place being here." He turned back towards his friend. "I need your help. Forget about the chaos, that's only meant as a distraction. There's a message hidden here."

"Somebody thrashed my apartment just to leave you a message? What in the name of all that's good is going on here, Shawn?"

"Not now, Gus. Please. Anything you can tell me? Take a good look around."

Gus sighed and with an obviously pained expression he started looking around the remains of his living room.

"Well, the TV was simply tossed down. The sofa was thrown backwards, the cushions slit, but it's a bit hard to say anything else with all the cushion stuffing and glass shards lying around on the floor."

Shawn joined Gus in trying to reconstruct which parts of the debris had been part of the original interior design. The pictures that were lying scattered on the floor had all been hanging on the walls previously, and there were no playing cards or other things hidden underneath them. The contents of the bookshelf had been tossed haphazardly to the floor, but as his eyes skimmed the titles nothing unusual stuck out. Pharmaceutical textbooks, true crime novels and other paperbacks which all belonged to Gus. Nothing there.

Psycho must have made a lot of noise on his path of destruction, but nobody had heard anything and called it in. No surprise there, seeing that most other tenants in Gus' apartment house went to work early in the morning.

Thrashing the contents of the living room Shawn could understand, but that psycho had gone the lengths to smash even the ceiling light seemed like a bit of overkill. He must have either used a bat or climbed onto a chair to accomplish that. The latter, if Shawn considered the overturned chair lying against the wall.

Why the lamp? Or rather, why the lamps? Because not only the ceiling light but also the one wall-fixture light and Gus' reading lamp had been smashed to pieces. In fact, the only light source that was still intact was the floor uplighter next to the sofa which Gus only turned on when watching TV.

"Now why is that?" Shawn wondered aloud.

Gus turned with a frown. "What?"

"Why is that the only light that's still intact in the entire room?"

Gus shrugged. "Maybe whoever did this liked the lamp? It was expensive, you know?"

Shawn regarded his best friend with a look that suggested he was seriously doubting his mental capacities. "That bastard thrashed your entire living room. Do you honestly think he'd stop at smashing that ugly floor lamp just because it wasn't made in Sweden?" He dragged over the chair. "Do me a favour and hold that, will you? I'm not so sure it's still as stable as it was on the day you brought it home from the local IKEA."

Gus pulled a face but silently held on to the lean of the chair as Shawn climbed up and reached into the floor lamp's upturned lampshade. The glass was milky white and from the outside he couldn't make out whether or not anything was inside. But his fingers immediately closed around something that had no place being in a lampshade, so he took it and climbed down from the chair again.

"What's that?" Gus asked and tried to look over Shawn's shoulder. "Is that a Polaroid?"

"Yes, it is." Shawn mumbled as he stared at the picture in front of him. This was getting stranger and stranger. It wasn't the first Polaroid psycho sent him, and this time it even showed a picture. That didn't mean it made any more sense than the first one had done, though.

It was a picture of the floor lamp in Gus' living room. And that just didn't make sense. What kind of clue was leaving a picture of the clue's hiding place? Psycho was definitely insane, that was the only explanation of the clues he was leaving. But still he expected Shawn to make sense of them.

"Shawn, what is going on here?"

"Believe me Gus, it's better if you don't know."

"But why would anybody take a picture of my lamp and hide it in the lamp? What kind of person does that?"

"Believe me Gus, it's better if you don't know."

"You sound like a broken record, Shawn."

Shawn sighed and turned the picture over, but there was nothing on the back. So the key to solving the clues was supposed to be the picture. But what could that be? A lamp. What could a lamp be a key for?

Unconsciously, Shawn started walking around the living room as he contemplated the possible meaning behind this.

Psycho had hidden the picture inside a lamp, and he had smashed all other lamps in the room as if to draw attention to the sole functioning lamp in the room. And it was a picture of a lamp. Shawn saw a tendency starting to form there.

Lamp.

Lampshade.

Shade.

Light.

Wait a second!

What was it psycho had said, not once but repeatedly? _Once Shawn figured it out, he'd be able to see things in the right light._ He had said that about every clue Shawn had found so far and once more before he had sent Shawn to Gus' place.

It wasn't about those stupid things he left at all. The playing card, the calling card and the first Polaroid, on their own they were absolutely meaningless. They could have been anything. It wasn't about them; it was about what was _on_ them! Something that couldn't be seen in normal light. Somehow, Shawn had to figure out what the right light was, and then he'd finally be able to understand it all.

As if from a distance, he could hear Gus' voice calling out his name. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focussed his eyes on his friend.

"Yes?"

"What does all that mean, Shawn?"

"It's better if you…"

"Don't know, yeah. Right Shawn. But maybe I want to know what all this is about!"

"I promise I'll explain. But right now I need to get going. Just do me one favour."

Gus silently raised his eyebrows. Shawn rolled his eyes, but answered the unspoken question anyway.

"Go to your parents' place for a little while. This will all be over soon, but it might be best if you don't hang around here."

Shawn pocketed the photograph so that it nestled along with all the other tokens psycho had left him in his inside pocket, then he turned towards the door. He was nearly out of the room already when he turned around once more.

"Oh, and Gus?"

Gus looked up from his sad contemplation of his ruined living room. "Yes?"

"I'm glad you're all right."

Shawn flashed a smile, then he hurried out of the apartment.

Lassiter and Juliet were no longer to be seen when Shawn came out the front door. No small wonder there, probably Lassiter was in the worst mood possible after being called to Gus' apartment unnecessarily. It might be better if their paths didn't cross again for the next day or two. Or ten.

Shawn put on his helmet and a few moments later he had pulled his bike into traffic and was heading back to the office. He knew just the right thing to start having a closer look at those clues.

Ten minutes later, Shawn was back at the office and drew the blinds in front of the windows.

The right light.

He should have seen it so much earlier. Psycho had said it four times, and Shawn hadn't gotten the hint. Even though it was so glaringly obvious now that he thought about it. He just needed to look at the clues in a different light.

Shawn laid out the clues on his desk, then he went over and opened one of the doors of the school locker that stood against the wall. And Gus always said Shawn was buying unnecessary things. He'd definitely no longer say something like that after this. If Shawn didn't keep his eyes open on bargains and good deals to be made on the internet, they surely wouldn't have a black light now.

The right light.

Shawn plugged the handheld lamp in and drew a deep breath. He only hoped he was right.

He actually held his breath as he flicked the switch and turned on the black light, then slowly ran it over the first clue.

Jackpot.

It hadn't been about the clues at all, psycho had only used them as a means of communication. Shawn had taken the oldest clue first, the Polaroid that was left at the scene where Ivan Bergstrom had been found murdered in the park. Psycho had written something on the Polaroid which was only visible if seen under black light.

_Jethro Hankinson_

Hankinson had been the name of the victim in whose case the police had found the clue, the second victim psycho had killed. A bad feeling started to settle in Shawn's gut as he pulled over the next clue, the veterinarians' calling card. He swung the black light over it. Again, there was writing on the card, scrawled across the veterinarian's name on the front.

_Devon Schroeder_

The bad feeling in Shawn's gut multiplied. Psycho had been leaving the names of his future victims on the clues he left at the crime scenes. Of course even if the police had found the clues they surely wouldn't have thought about looking at them under black light, probably they wouldn't even have recognised them as clues, but psycho had left announcements of his future murders at the crime scenes. And all victims had names which would have made them easily identifiable. Nobody who was named Smith or Miller, all the names were unique in their combination. The police really had had their chance, only it had never been a realistic one.

But that also meant that if Shawn took the playing card, the clue left at the Schroeder crime scene, he'd know the name of the next victim. It was confusing, because Shawn thought the clues had been meant to lead him to psycho and not to psycho's next victim, but maybe that had been the plan. To lure Shawn to the next crime scene. Shawn only hoped it wasn't after the crime was committed.

He pulled up the playing card and brought the flashlight over it.

_Hector van Bruinen_

Shouldn't be too hard to find, not with a name like that. Now Shawn only needed to call the police and have them find out where van Bruinen lived. Maybe they weren't too late yet. At least psycho hadn't sent Shawn to find a clue at another crime scene. There might still be time to save at least one person from this maniac.

Shawn had already gotten up from his chair when another thought struck him. It was a gut feeling, nothing more, but maybe it was a good idea tocheck the last Polaroid. Just in case psycho had left him another message, not just the clue about the light. Shawn didn't sit down again, he merely grabbed the black light and directed it onto the Polaroid of Gus' lamp.

He had been right, there was another message on the picture.

_Hector van Bruinen_

That name had been scratched out, and another name had been written underneath._  
_

_Henry Spencer  
_

Shawn dropped the black light and ran out of the office.


	8. A Matter of Time

Yes, this might be the chapter where we finally get to meet Psycho. Better beware ;-)

**Chapter 8 – A Matter of Time**

That bastard.

That frigging bastard.

Shawn had raced to Gus' apartment not even an hour earlier, but right now he was pushing the engine of his Norton to its limit. He was speeding through intersections, weaving through traffic and generally posing a hazard to traffic security in Santa Barbara. And normally he would not have driven this recklessly; normally he was very intent on safe driving.

But this was about his father.

Psycho was planning to kill his father, and that meant Shawn couldn't possibly drive fast enough.

As he pulled his bike into his father's street, his brain finally overrode his emotional reaction to seeing his father's name on that Polaroid. He stopped the bike and took off his helmet.

It would be stupid to arrive at his father's house on a roaring motorcycle. In case psycho wasn't there yet it wouldn't matter, but Shawn had to assume that he was. And in that case, his only chance was to get there fast and silently. And he needed something more than his quick mouth to stand up against psycho should he really be there already.

But if psycho was going after his father now, if he maybe was on his way to Henry Spencer's house right now and hadn't arrived yet, Shawn needed to warn his father. Psycho had always known when Shawn had made calls, and Shawn had no idea how he had come to that knowledge, but maybe right now the moment had come when Shawn needed to take that risk.

If psycho hadn't overwhelmed his father already, Shawn warning him could give him the head start that might prove crucial in the end. Life saving. Shawn just couldn't risk not warning his father, especially if psycho was already planning to kill him anyway. This wasn't about breaking the rules anymore. Psycho had broken them first.

Shawn pulled out his cell phone and called his father's landline. The call didn't go through. Something in Shawn's stomach clenched as he pressed the speed dial for his father's cell. It went straight to voicemail. Henry was always reachable, either on his landline or his cell. Something was wrong.

A plan started to form in Shawn's mind and he started running. His ankle was still hurting, but right now he didn't care. He'd get to his father's house from the backside. Not only was it more unlikely that psycho would see him approach from there, not if he cut through the neighbour's garden towards the garage, but he could also climb up onto the garage roof and into his father's bedroom from there. If anything, psycho would expect him to come into the house on the ground floor. If there was even the smallest chance of gaining the upper hand on psycho, Shawn would take it.

Heart beating fast in his chest Shawn ran along the sidewalk until he reached their neighbour's house. He had taken that path so often in his youth, he didn't consciously think as he cut across Mr. Pulaski's lawn, ducked through the narrow space in the hedges which never really grew closed and straightened up as he reached the garage. If psycho wasn't looking out the bathroom window right now, he wouldn't be able to see him.

The garage had a drainpipe which Shawn had used to climb up and down ever since he had been five years old. His father's bedroom wasn't the only one that could be reached from the garage roof, Shawn's childhood bedroom opened to the garage roof as well. His hands automatically knew where to reach and his feet immediately found purchase to boost himself up to the garage roof. Now all he could do was pray silently. If his father's bedroom window was closed, all this had to be in vain. If he had to break the window to get into the house, he could as well call ahead and give psycho a warning.

Shawn straightened up and moved as silently as he could over towards his father's bedroom window. It was open a crack. Not much, but it was enough for Shawn to stick his hand through and disengage the latch so that he could push the window all the way up. Shawn mumbled a silent thank you for his father's notorious neatness. He always kept everything neat around the house, and the window didn't make a sound as Shawn pushed it open.

Shawn took a quick look around the room, and when he found it empty he climbed in. For a moment, he just stood there and listened, but all he heard was his heart beating fast in his chest and the sound of his blood roaring in his ears. If anybody was downstairs, they weren't moving around. The TV wasn't on, and nobody was rummaging around anywhere. But Shawn had glimpsed his father's truck on the other side of the house as he had stood on the garage roof, so his Dad was home.

Shawn drew a deep breath to steel himself, then he slowly and silently moved over towards his father's bedside table.

Growing up with a cop for a father meant that Shawn had grown up with a weapon in the house. Henry had been very intent on safety, so the gun had always been in the gun safe in his parents' bedroom, locked up so that Shawn didn't have a chance to get to it. But as he had grown older, Shawn had undergone the basics of gun safety over and over again. Shawn had heard everything about gun safety multiple times long before he ever touched a gun. But when he had turned fourteen, Henry had taken Shawn to the gun range and had taught him how to shoot.

Shawn didn't own a gun, but he knew how to use one. Henry had made sure of that. Of course for his father it had been preparation for Shawn's future as a cop, but that didn't change the fact that Shawn knew how to shoot a gun. And since he was no longer a curious five year old with way too much imagination, his father's gun safe didn't pose an obstacle anymore. Not if the way to get it open was as easy as using his father's old badge number on the combination lock.

Shawn pulled the gun out of the safe and checked that it was loaded. He needn't have worried. Henry Spencer's gun rule #1: _Never keep a gun if you're not ready to use it. A criminal won't give you the time to put bullets into the gun._

Shawn made sure that the safety catch was engaged, then he put the gun into the waistband of his jeans, against his back. It was in complete violation with Henry Spencer's gun rule #4: _Only idiots put loaded weapons into their pants_, but right now Shawn didn't care. He couldn't walk downstairs with a gun in his hand, if psycho was there he'd immediately have him put it down. But he definitely wouldn't go downstairs without any kind of weapon.

Shawn didn't like carrying around a weapon. He had a huge respect for handguns, and he definitely didn't intend to use it against another human being. In general, he always preferred to talk himself out of dire situations, but this was different. He wouldn't let anybody harm his family. So what if he didn't actually intent to shoot the gun? He didn't necessarily need to tell psycho about it.

With the gun firmly lodged underneath the waistband of his jeans, Shawn snuck towards the bedroom door and slowly opened it. The upstairs hallway was empty, and Shawn slowly but steadily made his way over towards the stairs. Sometimes, having a strict father did pay off. Shawn had snuck out of the house so often in his youth that he knew exactly which stairs creaked where. He made his way down one step at a time, all the time holding his breath. There was nobody in the kitchen fortunately; otherwise Shawn could have forgotten everything about the element of surprise. Not that the kitchen was a comfortable room to be in right now. It still smelled of smoke, the surfaces were all charred and the curtains and chair cushions were blackened and burnt, but one look already told Shawn that the fire hadn't been bad enough to damage the structure of the house or the room.

But there were also no signs indicating that either his father or psycho were anywhere else in the house.

Shawn slowly took a careful step forward, but he'd need to leave cover further if he wanted to see the whole living room.

"Why don't you stop playing hide and seek and come out, Shawn?"

At first Shawn didn't know what to make of the voice, it sounded so much different than it had on the phone. It took him a moment to remember the device psycho had used to disguise his voice. Shawn drew a deep breath, then he took a step into the direction from which the voice had come – the living room.

As he rounded the corner and could finally see the whole living room, his heart stopped for a beat. Psycho was standing there with his back to the wall, but Shawn barely took notice of him at first. Because Henry was sitting slumped down in a kitchen chair in front of psycho, his face towards Shawn, but Henry wasn't conscious. A thin line of blood was trickling down the side of his face from a wound on his temple, and his eyes were closed. There was a basket with laundry standing next to the couch table and a spot of blood on the floor next to it, which told Shawn enough of what had happened here. Psycho had overwhelmed Henry when he had come into the room with the laundry. Probably he had knocked him out with the pistol he was right now pointing at Henry's head.

"Don't worry, Daddy is just unconscious. For now. He should be coming around soon."

Shawn finally tore his eyes away from his father's still form and looked up at psycho. He didn't quite know what he had expected, but this hadn't been it. Psycho was completely and utterly nondescript. Average height, average built, not overly muscular but obviously physically fit. Brown hair, narrow eyes and a round face that was right now contorted into a malicious grin. He held the gun firmly in his right hand, and gave a mock bow as his eyes met Shawn's.  
"It's good to finally meet you in person, Shawn."

"How did you know that I was in the house?"

Psycho laughed and his eyes darted to the side for a moment. For the first time Shawn noticed the laptop computer standing on the sideboard, within psycho's sight.

"The blessings of modern technology. You're good, I have to admit that. I'd have never heard you come into the house otherwise."

"What did you do, plant a bug on me?"

Again, Shawn's question was rewarded with a laugh. "No, that's too cliché. This isn't a bad Hollywood movie, Shawn. It's far more simple than that, I'm afraid."

"Are you going to tell me or not?"

Psycho raised both eyebrows. "I'm gong to indulge you on this one. I hacked your cell phone."

Shawn frowned. "You hacked my cell phone?"

"Yes. You see, nowadays these little devices are simply overflowing with technology. In fact they're pretty much like little computers, and computers can be hacked. The GPS chip inside was an added bonus, so I knew where you were at all times. Plus, I knew which calls you made and which messages you wrote."

Shawn shook his head as he tried to take it all in. "So you never followed me?"

"No. I was watching you at times, but I didn't follow you around. The chances would have been too high that you could make me. But the beautiful thing about this is that I didn't _need_ to follow you around, Shawn. I only needed you to believe that I was always around. I needed you to be too worried about being detected so that you wouldn't start searching for a way to alert the police."

"So…when you sent me to the police station, I just could have gone ahead and told everybody what was going on? You wouldn't have known if I had done so."

Psycho nodded. "Exactly. But by that time you were so convinced that somehow I was following you around that you didn't dare to alert anybody. Not the detectives, not your friend Gus, nobody. In fact, you were very good as far as the rules were concerned. Until a few minutes ago, that is."

Shawn drew a deep breath. Now that he knew how psycho had known about his phone calls, it was clear that psycho also knew about the two calls he had tried to make to his father earlier.

"Tell me Shawn, which part of the rules wasn't clear to you? I thought I had been pretty clear on the fact that you weren't supposed to warn your father about the game we were playing. You broke the rules."

"You broke them first, asshole. You went after my father. You said your stupid clues would lead me to a one-on-one meeting with you, what was that all about?"

Psycho grinned. "Well, if you had figured out the clues a little earlier, then all this would have been about Mr. van Bruinen right now. I'd have given you a time and a date, and you'd have gotten your one shot at taking me in and maybe even saving Mr. van Bruinen's life. I admit that I changed my initial game plan earlier today, but here we are."

He spread his arms slightly as if to gesture around the room, but quickly moved the hand holding the gun back against Henry's head. "This is a one-on-one meeting, isn't it? Especially considering that Daddy is out of commission right now."

"And it's a very fair meeting, seeing that you're holding a gun to my father's head and I'm unarmed. There's so much I can do now to overwhelm you."

Psycho shrugged. "That's not really my problem, is it?"

Shawn shook his head. "You're insane."

"That's what they said." Psycho chuckled.

"Well, whoever _they_ are, I certainly agree with them."

Psycho's expression darkened from one moment to the next and he pushed the barrel of the gun more forcefully against Henry's head.

"Don't! Don't talk about things you know nothing about, Shawn! All this is not my fault. They forced me to do this!"

"Who, the voices in your head?"

"The police!"

Now Shawn was confused. "The police forced you to become a murderer? I hate to rain on your parade, but usually it's just the other way around. They're there to stop murderers, not create them."

"The police are incompetent! They don't know shit! I could have been a great cop, I've got what it takes! I'm more intelligent than all of those no-brainers who drive patrol cars around the city! And what do they tell me? That I'm not good enough. That I failed, because of some stupid psych-evaluation! They were kicking out the best cop they could have ever had!"

"You wanted to become a cop?" Shawn didn't know whether he should laugh or cry. It was a good thing the police did psychological evaluations on all candidates.

"I was born to be a cop!" Psycho yelled. "But they turned me down! I needed to show them what a mistake that was. I needed to show them that they _needed_ me on the force. There have been three murders within a week, and the police are in the dark about all of them. Because they couldn't find the clues on their own. There's a serial killer on the loose, and they are too dumb and blind to see the clues! Even you didn't find the clues without my help. I would have found the clues, I could have solved the cases, but they didn't want me."

Shawn shook his head in complete and utter disbelief. That guy definitely was a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. "You committed those murders! You planted those clues, of course you would have found them! What kind of a sick logic is that? And what do you think is going to happen once they find out? Do you really think that they're going to hire you?"

Psycho laughed again. "No, they had their chance. They pushed me onto the other side of the law, and it's all their fault. I only need them to pick up the trace."

Shawn no longer understood what psycho was talking about. "You want them to catch you?"

Psycho rolled his eyes as if Shawn was particularly dumb. "I want them to chase me. I want them to know that I have committed those murders, I want them to know that they missed the clues I left them when I started! They'll never catch me, I'm far too good for that, but I want them to put at least a little effort into trying to find me." He laughed again, and there was a gleam in his eyes that made a shiver run down Shawn's spine. "Finding out that you were consulting for the police department was a gift, Shawn. That's why I changed the game plan. Maybe it takes a dead police consultant and a dead ex-cop for them to search the crime scene thoroughly. And since you removed all my previous clues, I'm just going to leave enough clues here for them to figure out that those other three men were my work, too. I'm going to have to be a little more obvious than I normally like, but that can't be helped. And then…" He turned his eyes to the window wistfully, but his attention only strayed for a second. "Then I'm going to leave town. Probably I'm going to leave the state. I'm going to miss the ocean, but if I continue my work in another state, maybe the FBI will get involved. It would finally pose a real challenge to me. Not that I think they're going to be clever enough to find me either, but it should become interesting. Maybe I'll work my way across the States, or maybe I'll hop on a plane and fly east. New Jersey is supposed to be really nice at this time of year."

Psycho's grin was a blow to Shawn's gut. "You'll stay away from my mother!"  
Psycho just chuckled. "Oh, but I'm afraid once we're finished here, there won't be much to stop me. Actually, it's probably a good idea to pay your dear mother a visit. If three members of a family mysteriously end up murdered within the span of weeks, maybe that'll bring the Feds in a lot more quickly."

Psycho was baiting him, Shawn knew that. On a rational level he knew that. But he couldn't help the feeling of bile rising in his throat when he thought about this bastard going to New Jersey to hurt his mother. But that wouldn't happen, Shawn wouldn't allow this to happen. Shawn still had the gun, and he would not give psycho a chance to do any more harm to his father than he already had.

He only needed to find an opening, he needed to figure out how to get his father to a safe place.

A groan from the other end of the room tore Shawn out of his thoughts. Henry began to stir on the chair. Shawn noticed that his father wasn't tied up, but after a blow to the head he was probably still too dazed to even contemplate getting up and running away. Probably, he didn't even know where he was.

Shawn watched as slowly his father's blue eyes opened, first one, then both. There was a lot of blinking involved and it took a moment until he was able to focus his gaze, but finally his eyes settled on Shawn. A frown settled on his face as he tried to remember what had happened.

"Shawn, what's going on?" He finally asked, his words slightly slurred. He made move to get up from the chair, but psycho's hand on the back of his shirt pulled him back and the gun was pressed against the side of his head again. Shawn saw how Henry's eyes widened as he realised where the pressure against his head came from.

"Shawn?"

"It's going to be all right, Dad. Don't worry, it's all going to work out all right."

Psycho chuckled. "How touching. However, I can't quite bring myself to share your optimism on that matter."

Shawn didn't know what was holding psycho back from killing both of them and getting on with his sick and twisted plan, but he knew they were running out of time. He desperately needed to focus psycho's attention away from his father, he needed to distract him and maybe get him to move away from the chair. Then he might be able to turn the tables because psycho still didn't know about the gun.

"I'm an optimistic guy, you know? Besides, you didn't honestly think I'd keep what was going on from Gus, did you?"

Something like doubt showed on psycho's face, just for the fragment of a second, but Shawn had seen it. With a grin, he continued.

"You thrashed his apartment and then you sent me there. Now, you might not know Gus very well, but believe me that he wouldn't let me leave again if I didn't give him some answers."

"You're lying!"

"No, I'm not lying. You threatened to kill him, you sick bastard. Do you honestly think that I didn't warn him about what was going on? Do you really think that if you already gave me the chance to talk to Gus without breaking your stupid rules, I wouldn't use that chance to warn him? Right now he's probably mobilising the whole of the SBPD and they're one their way here. How's that for optimism?"

"Shut up!" Psycho yelled. "Just shut the fuck up! You're lying! You wouldn't have dared to tell Guster what was going on, you wouldn't have endangered him that recklessly!"

"Oh no? Just ask my father, he will gladly tell you that recklessness is one of my stronger traits. Seems as if the tables have been turned against you, doesn't it?"

Shawn was surprised how much confidence there was in his voice. He didn't really feel that confidence. Gus wasn't alerting the SBPD right now, he was probably sitting in his parents' kitchen mooching a late lunch. He was probably wondering about his friend's strange behaviour, but if he was totally honest with himself, Shawn had to admit that strange behaviour wasn't entirely unusual for him.

Henry was silently watching the exchange, now fully awake. His whole posture was rigid, as if he was ready to jump up at a moment's notice, but was still held in place by the barrel of the gun against his head. His eyes were fixed on Shawn, silently following his son's every move.

Problem was, Shawn still didn't know what to do to get the upper hand on psycho. Carefully, he took another step towards psycho.

"Stay right where you are, or I'm going to put a bullet in his brain!"

Shawn stopped and raised both hands in a pacifying gesture. "All right, all right. I'm staying. But think about this again. You don't want to do this."

Psycho just laughed. "Oh, you have no idea how much I want to do this."

"You are not going to get away with killing us, you know that right? My Dad is a cop, they tend to get very angry if one of theirs is hurt or killed. They're going to find you, and if they do you're never going to see the inside of the courtroom."

Psycho's grin seemed to cover his whole face. "I'm not afraid of them. And what do you want me to do? Give myself up? Face the judges on what I've done? I don't think so."

"Shawn," Henry muttered warningly, as if he knew what his son was trying to do.

"There are people who can help you…"

"Shawn!" Henry snapped again, this time not even bothering to keep his voice low. Psycho pressed the barrel against Henry's head again without taking his eyes off Shawn.

"What, you want me to go see a psychiatrist? Now that's a classic!"

"With your history, you probably wouldn't even be tried for the murders. You'd simply be brought to a hospital where people can help…"

"I'm not going to end up in a psych ward!" Psycho yelled, spittle flying from his mouth and his face red with anger. "And this has been enough talking. You're not going to smooth-talk yourself out of this, so spare yourself the trouble, Shawn. If I were you, I'd spare my breath to say good-bye to Daddy."

Something in Shawn's chest clenched as he saw psycho's attention focus back on his father. Henry stiffened in his chair as he heard the sound of the gun's hammer being cocked right next to his ear.

Shawn didn't even think about it, he reached behind his back to pull out his father's gun, the only worry on his mind being the question whether he could pull it fast enough to save his father.

From the corner of his eyes, psycho must have seen the movement. Before Shawn could even close his hand around the butt of the gun, the madman suddenly spun around and aimed his gun at Shawn.

There was a flash as the gun discharged, the report of the shot drowning out all other noise for a second. A searing pain cut through Shawn's right side, a pain so bad that it couldn't possibly be real because nothing could hurt so much. Distantly, Shawn heard his father's voice yell his name as the world around him suddenly started to spin and he fell to the floor.


	9. And who's going to clean up this mess?

**Chapter 9 – And who's going to clean up this mess?**

Henry was out of his chair and by his son's side in two quick strides. He didn't even think about the man with the gun anymore. Not that he had understood what was going on here in the first place, and right now it didn't matter.

What mattered was his son and the growing red stain on Shawn's polo shirt. Henry fell to his knees beside Shawn and pressed a hand against his son's cheek.

"Shawn, can you hear me?"

Weakly, Shawn opened his eyes and looked at his father.

"Dad…"

"It's going to be all right, Shawn."

Steps were approaching father and son from the side. "Get away from him."

"Fuck off!" Henry snarled, then turned back towards Shawn's face.

Shawn directed an urgent and pleading look at his father. "Gun…waistband…"

It was merely a whisper, but Henry heard it. And suddenly he understood what Shawn had been about to do right before that crazy bastard had shot him. Shawn had been reaching for a gun, and since his son didn't own a gun that Henry knew of, it probably was Henry's own. The only problem was that if the gun was in the waistband of Shawn's jeans, it was against Shawn's back. And that meant that Henry couldn't get to it, not without seriously jarring his son's injury.

"Get away from him. Now." The madman's voice cut into his thoughts. From the corner of his eyes Henry saw a pair of boots step into his line of vision.

"No."

Defiantly, Henry looked up and met the man's gaze. The man's lips pulled into a grin and he brought up the gun again.

"I initially wanted it to happen the other way around, but I guess it doesn't matter. Though I'm still undecided whether I'll waste another bullet on him or whether I'll just let him bleed out. What do you think, Daddy?"

Henry watched as the man lifted his gun again and he knew that he didn't have another choice.

"I'm sorry, Shawn." He mumbled.

Psycho grinned. "Oh, don't apologize. It's not your fault that he'll be dead in a few moments."

Henry drew a deep breath. "I wasn't apologizing for that."

And before that psycho even had the chance to cock the hammer of his revolver again, Henry reached underneath Shawn's back for the gun in his son's waistband. His hand brushed roughly past the injury and Shawn screamed as the pain flared up with renewed force. But then Henry's hand closed around the butt of the gun, he pulled it out from underneath Shawn's body and swung it around to point at the man who had shot his son. Henry didn't even need to take a closer look at the weapon to know that it was his own gun, and his hand automatically molded around it in a steady grip. With his thumb he disengaged the safety and then, without thinking, he pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed loudly through the room, and the madman looked completely stunned for a moment, his own gun still pointed at Shawn. For a long few seconds, nothing happened, then suddenly the gun dropped to the ground, the man had barely the time to take one disbelieving look at the small red spot on his chest, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor.

Henry quickly grabbed both guns, put them out of the madman's reach, then he turned back towards Shawn.

His son was still awake, but his eyes were squeezed shut in pain and his breathing was coming in short, shallow gasps.

"Shawn, can you hear me?"

Slowly, Shawn opened his eyes. "Yeah."

"It's going to be all right. It's over now."

Henry quickly reached into the laundry basked that was still standing where he had dropped it earlier and pulled out the first item his hand closed around – his lucky racetrack shirt. The one Shawn had teased him about endlessly.

He balled it up and put it on the wound in Shawn's side.

"I'm sorry, this is going to hurt."

Shawn nodded wordlessly, but no matter how much he braced himself he could not stop the scream of pain that escaped his lips as Henry pressed down on the wound.

"I'm sorry, kiddo." Henry repeated. "But you're bleeding too much; we need to get you to a hospital."

"Just a flesh wound."

"Shawn!" Henry said, his voice filled with disbelief and indignation.

A weak grin formed on his son's face. "I've always wanted to say that." He drew a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut in pain for a moment. When he opened them again, he looked down at the shirt Henry was pressing against his wound. "If any of that shirt gets into my bloodstream, I'll get…an infection of bad taste."

Henry couldn't believe that his son was joking in a moment like this, but then again this _was_ Shawn. Nothing should surprise him anymore.

"We need to get you to a hospital, buddy. Where is your cell phone?"

"Front pocket. Right side."

Henry took one hand off the pressure bandage and was just about to reach into his son's pocket when suddenly the front door burst open and people stormed into the house. There were loud yells of "Police" and "Freeze", and a flurry of activity Henry was completely unable to place. Not that it mattered.

"We need an ambulance! Fast!" He yelled at nobody in particular, his eyes fixed on his son's face.

"McNabb, get that ambulance here, fast! O'Hara, go check on the shooter!" Another voice yelled. Henry only looked up when somebody knelt down beside him.

"How is he?" Lassiter asked, a slight tinge of worry in his voice.

Upon hearing the detective, Shawn opened his eyes again. "Awww Lassie. You're worried."

His voice was weak and laced with pain, betraying the joking words, but nevertheless Lassiter shook his head with an exasperated expression and ignored the fake psychic's words, just as if this was yet another meeting in Chief Vick's office.

"Henry?"

"He was shot in the side. The bullet went clean through, and I don't think it hit his lung. But he's losing a lot of blood."

Lassiter nodded. "We had an ambulance on standby, it should be here any moment."

If Henry hadn't understood what was going on earlier, now he had completely lost track of what was going on. Had the whole world gone crazy or was this just a nightmare? "How did you even know to come here?"

Lassiter shrugged. "Guster called. He said Spe…Shawn had been acting weird. Weirder than usual, that is. He convinced O'Hara to go looking for him in the Psych office, and just as we were on the way there, dispatch called in a report of gunshots at your address. We called in backup and an ambulance and came here as fast as we could."

The sound of an approaching siren could be heard from outside, but before the ambulance arrived another voice cut through the chaos in the living room.

"Shawn!"

Shawn had obvious difficulties holding on to consciousness now, even upon hearing Gus' worried voice he barely managed to crack open one eye.

"Gus." He whispered. "Dude."

"What have you gotten yourself into…oh my God, is that blood?"  
"Calm down, Gus." Henry said, with a calm and confidence he didn't feel. "The ambulance is already here."

Two EMTs were pushing their way through the flurry of police officers in the living room. Henry only reluctantly let go of the shirt he was still pressing against the wound in Shawn's side, but after a moment he relented. It only took a few minutes, then Shawn was strapped onto a gurney, an oxygen mask over his face, an IV stuck into his left arm and ready for transport.

As the EMTs started pushing the gurney towards the door, Henry sprang into action. "I'll ride with him."

There was no disagreement from the EMTs, so Henry climbed into the back of the ambulance, settled down next to his son's head and picked up Shawn's hand.

"Just hold on, Shawn. Just hold on. It's going to be all right."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Hospital admittance forms. Henry could fill those out without having to think. Wake him up in the middle of the night and put a hospital admittance form into his hand, and he'd fill it out. Flawlessly. With his eyes closed. He knew the layout of those forms because it hadn't changed in the past thirty years, and he knew Shawn's medical record by heart and experience. He had been sitting in the ER filling out admittance form for nearly every incident in Shawn's medical history.

_Name_, _DOB_, _address_, that was easy.

_Blood_ _type_: B positive, just in case Shawn had been a little careless with his own supply of blood.

_Allergies_: Penicillin, it was important to remember that. All other antibiotics were fine, but nobody wanted to be around if somebody was stupid enough to give Shawn Penicillin.

_Previous medical history_: Now that one always was the kicker. Whoever had designed those forms certainly hadn't had Shawn in mind. They were only giving five lines for the previous medical history, which was hardly enough to fit even half of Shawn's previous hospital stays into. Over the years of Shawn's youth, Henry had developed a system. If Shawn broke a bone, he'd fill in the previous breaks. If Shawn was being stitched up, he'd fill in all other previous injuries concerning blood-loss of any kind. If Shawn was having surgery, he'd fill in all previous surgeries. It worked.

It took just a few minutes to fill out the forms and hand them over to the nurse at the duty station. The nurse took the forms, handed them over to a young orderly, then – much to Henry's surprise – ordered Henry in a no-nonsense voice to follow him. Before he knew it, Henry found himself sitting on a bed in the ER treatment area, waiting for a doctor to treat to the wound on the side of his head.

Up to this point, Henry had all but forgotten about the gash above his temple, but that at least explained where his blinding headache came from.

Fifteen minutes later, Henry received four stitches from a doctor who seemed to be eighteen years old at most. At least they didn't have to shave his hair got get to the wound. Despite the fact that he seemed more like a kid than a real doctor who was old enough to be set loose on patients, the doctor dealt with the wound quickly and efficiently, diagnosed Henry with a minor concussion that didn't pose a serious health risk and gave him a small bottle of pain meds from the pharmacy.

Then he was free to go.

Right, as if he'd go anywhere until he received word about Shawn's condition.

So all he could do was wait.

Henry hated waiting.

Shawn had lost consciousness not even a minute into the drive in the ambulance, and as soon as they had arrived at the hospital, he had been wheeled away and Henry hadn't been allowed to follow. So now he was stuck here in the ER waiting room, sitting around and doing nothing until one of the doctors finally got their ass in gear to tell him how bad his son's injuries were.

Gus was sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, waiting along with him. Lassiter and O'Hara had remained at the scene in Henry's house, but he didn't doubt that somebody from the police station would show up here sooner or later.

With a sigh Henry sat down in the chair beside Gus'.

"All right Gus, what's going on? Who was that guy, and why was he after Shawn?"

Gus shook his head. "I don't know what happened, Mr. Spencer."

"Gus, some psychopath knocked me out with the butt of a pistol and shot my son in front of my eyes. I don't know what case the two of you were working on and I don't care if Shawn swore you to secrecy, but I think I'm entitled to some answers!"

Gus sighed. "I'd give you the answers you want, but I just don't know. All I know is that when I came home this afternoon, somebody had thrashed my apartment. I called Lassiter and Juliet, and just after they arrived Shawn came barging in and threw them out."

"But he must have said something."

"He was looking for something. He said somebody had left him a message. But it was totally senseless. I mean, it was a picture of my lamp hidden in my lamp, how crazy is that? Shawn just grabbed it, told me to go stay with my parents and left. It was pretty strange, even for Shawn, so I called Juliet again and convinced her to go and look if he was all right. You know the rest."  
Yeah, he knew the rest. Psychopath breaks into his house, knocks him out, then later threatens to shoot him and when Shawn tried to pull the gun in his defense he got shot instead. Knowing the rest didn't mean understanding what the hell was going on.

They spent the next two hours in silent waiting. Henry found that he couldn't possibly sit still for more than five minutes. His thoughts just came circling back to what he remembered of those few minutes in his living room, and inevitably they came back to the moment when Henry had watched that bullet hit his son.

He would never forget the expression on Shawn's face when the bullet had torn into his side, that horrible mix of shock and disbelief. Not of pain, though, the pain had taken a moment to set in. It hadn't shown on Shawn's face until he had fallen to the floor.

That was what Henry had always been afraid of. He had thought it would come in the form of a call, not as a live performance right in front of his eyes, but ever since Shawn had opened that damn psychic detective agency, Henry had known that something like this would happen. It wasn't like on TV, where the hero always found an out at the last possible moment. This was the real life, where the bad guys didn't stick to the script.

That was why Henry had wanted Shawn to become a cop. Cops could call for backup, they didn't face off gun-wielding psychopaths on their own. There was always at least one partner who had your back. But of course Shawn had chosen the unorthodox way of doing a cop's work. And now he was paying the price for it.

Henry knew that probably Shawn's injury wasn't life threatening. The bullet had missed the lung that he was sure of. But Shawn had lost a lot of blood, which wasn't good. He had lost consciousness and his blood pressure had dropped on the drive here, which also wasn't good. And generally, the thought of a lead bullet tearing its way through his son's body at high velocity was definitely not something that showed up on any list of things Henry Spencer considered good.

And Henry knew that there were always possible complications. The bullet could have hit something vital, like the liver or a kidney. Shawn could have a reaction to his medication. His surgeon could be an imbecile who didn't know what he was doing, who might leave a swab in the wound, or who might lose his wristwatch in his son's body.

All right, he was worried. He openly admitted it, even if only to himself. But damn it, Shawn was his son. Henry had tried to keep him safe and out of trouble ever since he had started walking. Pressing a compress against the gaping bullet hole in his son's side while he watched Shawn's blood seep through his fingers was his worst nightmare. It would be his nightmare for the days and weeks to come, that Henry already knew.

He was aware that his and Shawn's relationship was rocky at the best of times, but the thought of losing Shawn tore him apart. It was a possibility he didn't even want to contemplate. Shawn would pull through this in his usual cocky way, there was no other way. In a few days they would laugh about it. Well, Shawn would probably laugh about it, Henry doubted that he ever would.

He looked up from his silent contemplation while pacing a hole in the floor when Lassiter came into the waiting room.

"Any news?"

Henry shook his head. "He's still in surgery."

Lassiter nodded, looking as if he didn't quite know what to respond. Henry broke the ensuing silence.

"Anything new on the dirtbag who did this?"

Lassiter nodded and pulled out his notebook. "We identified him. Does the name Roger Dorn mean anything to you?"

Henry thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, never heard it before. What's his story?"

"We're still digging into that. I didn't have the chance to check back with the station yet, so far all I know is that he applied to the Police Academy once. He failed the psychological evaluation, we're still trying to figure out what he did since then. Maybe he'll be able to provide some answers himself once he's out of surgery."

Henry couldn't believe his ears. "That bastard is still alive?" He had shot the dirtbag, hadn't he? He had shot him in the chest, and though he hadn't been thinking about it before the shot, he hadn't aimed to wound, he had aimed to kill.

Lassiter nodded grimly. "He is. Your shot missed the heart by a few inches. We don't have any word on his condition yet, but the EMTs said there's a chance he might pull through."

"Are you trying to tell me that the bastard who shot my son is right here, at the same hospital? That some doctors are trying to save his life right now, possibly in the room right next to the one where my son is?"

Lassiter put his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Henry, you know how this works. Personal feelings aside, we couldn't just leave him there until he bled out. And right now he's under sedation, and as soon as he's out of surgery, in case he survives, he'll be under twenty-four hour guard."

"I don't want that psychopath anywhere near my son, Carlton!"

"He won't get near him. You have my word that he'll be under guard at all times, and that he'll be transferred to a prison hospital as soon as his condition allows it. If he pulls through at all. You just focus on Shawn right now."

"They're not exactly in a hurry to tell me anything about his condition." Henry sank into the nearest chair and ran his hands over his head with a groan. His fingers brushed against the bandage and he withdrew them with a hiss.

"How is the head?" Lassiter asked as he sat down beside the older man.

Henry shrugged. "I'll live. But I need to know that my son is all right. What is taking them so long?"

Unable to stand sitting around anymore, Henry got up from the chair and resumed his pacing. Gus was still sitting in his own chair, silently staring at the wall as Henry paced by.

Henry made all of two turns up and down the waiting room when the doors to the treatment area opened and a middle-aged doctor emerged. Gus was out of his seat and by Henry's side immediately as the doctor approached Henry.

"Spencer family?"

Henry and Gus both nodded.

"My name is Stanley Myers, I've been treating Shawn after he was brought here."

"How is my son?" Henry asked impatiently.

"He is in recovery right now, and the prognosis is good. We're still a little worried about the blood loss. Shawn received two units of blood during surgery, but by now his blood pressure is stable. The bullet did some damage, but fortunately no vital organs or arteries were damaged. It was a clean through and through, with damage to some minor blood vessels and the muscle tissue. He won't be doing sit-ups for a while, but he should be all right. We have him on an IV with antibiotics to prevent an infection, and he'll have to stay here for a few days, but I'm very content with the result of the surgery. It could have ended a lot worse."

Henry breathed a loud sigh of relief. "I want to see him."

The doctor nodded. "Of course. He's still under sedation, but he should wake up soon. He'll probably be in and out of it for a while, but if nothing unforeseen happens I'm fairly sure that he'll be awake and coherent by tomorrow morning. He'll be brought up to a room in a few minutes, I'll have a nurse come and show you upstairs. If there are any more questions you have about Shawn's treatment, don't hesitate to have the nurses call me."

"Thank you, doctor."

Myers nodded, then he vanished back through the doors through which he had emerged just a few minutes ago. Lassiter turned towards Henry.

"Forensics is still working the crime scene in your house, but if you give me your keys I'll lock up after the guys from the cleanup crew are finished."

Henry reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his keys, placing them in Lassiter's hand. "Thanks Carlton."

"No problem. I'll have somebody drop by with the keys later on."

Lassiter left, and a moment later a nurse came through the doors and led Henry and Gus up one floor and down a corridor to Shawn's room.

Shawn was lying on his back, a blanket covering him up to the middle of his torso. His right side was covered with a big square gauze bandage, and an IV-line in his left arm went up to a bag filled with clear liquid. Shawn seemed paler than usual, the stubble on his face stood out far more prominently than it usually did and there were dark shadows underneath his eyes. His eyes were closed and he was breathing evenly.

Wordlessly, Henry pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down. Gus sat down on the other side of the bed, but Henry barely noticed. He had his eyes focused on Shawn and nothing else. He had to force himself to keep the doctor's words in mind. Shawn would be fine. He'd wake up soon, everything would be all right.

Not that Shawn getting hit by a bullet was all right, or would ever be. Not in Henry Spencer's world. And once he woke up, Henry would let Shawn know exactly that. It had been pure dumb luck that the bullet hit nothing vital as it tore its way through Shawn's body. Pure and simple luck, nothing else. It could have ended so much worse.

Henry still didn't know what had happened that had caused the events of this afternoon, but obviously Shawn had known or guessed that a gun-wielding sociopath was in Henry's house. Why else would he have brought a gun? Shawn didn't like guns, it would take quite a very good reason for him to be walking around with a gun tucked into his waistband. Not to mention that if Henry had ever taught Shawn something about gun safety, then it was that only idiots and people who weren't particularly attached to their body parts carried around loaded weapons in their pants.

As soon as he woke up, Shawn had some serious explaining to do.

Some time later, Gus began to shift in his chair on the other side of the bed. Henry tore his eyes away from Shawn's still face and looked up.

"You think he'll wake up tonight?" Gus asked.

Henry could only shrug. "You heard the doctor, Gus. The sedation is slowly wearing off, but knowing Shawn he might just sleep through the night nevertheless. Especially if you consider how he normally reacts to being sedated. The last time I was there when he woke up from sedation he begged me not to let the pink elephant get close to him again. He probably won't be coherent until tomorrow morning. Just go home if you want to."

Gus shook his head. "It's not that I want to leave. But my apartment is in shambles, I still haven't filed a police report and if I don't do that today the insurance is going to give me a truckload of trouble before they pay. But I need to know that Shawn will be all right."

"He'll be fine, Gus. Just go and take care of that stuff. I'll call you if he wakes up, or if anything changes."

Gus nodded slowly. "Thanks, Mr. Spencer."

He got up from his chair and approached the head of the bed. "And you better wake up soon, Shawn, otherwise you'll have to deal with me."

He watched Shawn's still face for a moment, then he turned around and left the room.

Henry sat in the silent hospital room for a few moments, simply listening to his son's slow and regular breathing. Then he settled more comfortably in his chair, leaned back and folded his hands behind his neck.

Shawn never reacted well to being sedated. Henry didn't know if something in the medication temporarily fried the synapses in his son's brain or whatever it was, but when he woke up from surgery Shawn usually hallucinated half-coherently for a little bit, then he was out of it again for another twelve hours at least. So even if Shawn woke up this evening, things might get interesting.

So Henry settled for the wait.

And Shawn slept.

The nurse on duty dropped by twice after Gus left to check on Shawn's condition, but nothing else happened.

Henry waited.

Shawn slept.

It was already dark outside when Shawn slowly started to stir. Henry immediately straightened up in his chair, and immediately a sharp bolt of pain shot up his back. Sitting cramped in the hospital chair like that had been pure hell on his back, but right now that didn't matter because Shawn slowly opened his eyes.

Tiredly, he blinked a few times, then he stared ahead without any real focus. Henry leaned over the bed, and as he bent his head over Shawn's bed, Shawn's eyes slowly focused on him.

"Dad," he rasped out in a barely audible voice, and Henry had to swallow against the lump that suddenly formed in his throat.

"Hey there," he answered with a smile on his face. "How are you feeling?"

Shawn's eyes sluggishly moved around the room, then settled on his father's face again.

"You all right?" He whispered weakly.

Had the situation not been this serious, Henry might have laughed. "Me? I'm just peachy. It's you I was worried about."

"He…didn't…shoot you?"

"No kid, he didn't shoot me. The bastard shot you."  
Shawn's eyes were threatening to drop close again. "Good."

"Good? What are you talking about?"

"He didn't…shoot you." A small smile showed on Shawn's face as his eyes dropped close.

Henry shook his head, his own smile mirroring Shawn's. The kid's logic was somewhat strange, but that was Shawn for you. And at least this time, there had been no conversation about pink elephants.

Thinking that Shawn was fast asleep again, Henry settled more comfortably in his chair and ran a hand through Shawn's hair.

Shawn moved his head slightly into the contact. "Stay?" he mumbled without opening his eyes.

Henry's smile widened. "Of course I'll stay. You just sleep."

Shawn was already completely out of it again, and with a smile Henry ran his hand through his son's hair again. He'd call Gus in a moment, but he'd wait for a little while longer before he left the room. After all, he had promised Shawn to stay, and whether or not that had been the medication speaking, Henry intended to keep that promise.


	10. You did WHAT?

**Chapter 10 – You did WHAT?**

Shawn slept peacefully through the night. He did not wake up again, and in fact he didn't even remember that he had been awake before when he opened his eyes again the next morning.

The only thing he did remember as he slowly blinked the world into focus was that there had been something about his father. Something important, something _really_ important. But what?

As the room around him slowly came into focus, Shawn didn't recognize his surroundings. A jolt of fear shot through him. Where was his Dad? It was important that he found his Dad. He knew that, even if he didn't know why. Shawn tried to sit up. He needed to get out of here, wherever he was, and he needed to find his Dad.

But as soon as he started to raise his upper body up, searing pain engulfed his whole right side and he could barely bring out a gasp of pain as his breath caught in his throat.

Gentle hands on his shoulders pressed him down again.

"Easy son, don't try to sit up. I'll call a nurse to give you something for the pain."

Shawn immediately recognized his father's voice and allowed his Dad to press him back into a lying position. But his Dad couldn't go and call a nurse. Shawn still didn't remember, but he knew that there had been something about his Dad. He only needed to remember it, it was on the tip of his tongue, but until he did he couldn't let his father leave.

And because he didn't trust his voice enough, and because he had no idea how to put those half-coherent thoughts into words, Shawn simply reached for one of his father's wrists and wrapped his hand tightly around it.

Henry didn't try to pull his wrist out of his son's grasp, and after a moment Shawn slowly mustered up enough strength to turn his head towards the side. His father was sitting next to his bed – how exactly had he ended up in a bed? – his right hand lying atop the mattress and blanket with his wrist encased in Shawn's death-grip, his left hand lying in his lap.

He looked tired, and Shawn quickly realised that he was still wearing the same clothes he had worn the last time he had seen him, back in the living room at Henry's house. There even were some traces of blood on his collar from the gash on his head where psycho had knocked him out.

Psycho!

Before he knew it, Shawn had was already halfway in an upright position again before a combination of agonizing pain and his father's hands on his shoulders stopped him again.

"Shawn, stop it. Don't try to sit up, you're hurt."

Panting from the pain, Shawn sank back into his pillows, but he never took his eyes away from his father.

"What happened?" He brought out after a few moments.

"You were shot, kiddo." Was Henry's rather dry reply.

Shawn closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered now. He remembered psycho losing it, and he remembered the gunshot. After that things went a little fuzzy. Shawn only remembered pain and voices and yelling before the world had turned dark.

"Are you all right?" Shawn asked a little worriedly, his eyes on the bandage that covered the wound on Henry's head.

Henry smiled knowingly, as if he had had this conversation before. "Yes, I'm all right. Just a few stitches, I've got a hard head. You on the other hand just went through surgery, so I don't want to see another attempt at sitting up again from you. I can order to have you restrained, you know?"

Shawn rolled his eyes but obediently remained lying on his back. Before either Spencer man could say anything else, a nurse came into the room. She checked the near-empty IV-bag that hung on the left side of Shawn's bed and flashed the younger man a smile.

"Good morning. I see you've finally decided to wake up. Any pain?"

"Only since I tried to sit up." Shawn admitted.

"Well, you're not supposed to do that. Let it be a lesson to you, you'll be lying on your back for a few days."

She pulled something out of a drawer and injected it into the IV-line that ran into the back of Shawn's left hand.

"That should take the edge off the pain in a few moments. The doctor will be by to check on the incision later on. I'll get you something light for breakfast, how does that sound?"

Shawn smiled. "Great, thanks."

As the nurse left the room, Henry chuckled. Shawn slowly turned his head. "What's so funny?"

"I doubt you'll share her definition of a light breakfast. As I said, you just went through surgery. Probably you'll get jell-o."

"For breakfast?" Shawn was positively scandalised at the idea, which only increased Henry's amusement.

"Yes, for breakfast. And no, I won't sneak any burritos in here, so spare yourself the need to ask. For once in your life, you'll do as you're told."

Shawn sighed dramatically and sank back into his pillows. "So what happened?"

"Well, that is actually something I'd really like to know from you. All I know so far is that some psychopath broke into my house and knocked me unconscious. And judged by the fact that you took my gun before you joined us, I'd say you were expecting him. So how about you tell me what happened, because the facts I have don't really make much sense."

"Maybe you should call Lassiter and Jules. That way I won't have to tell it over and over again. And maybe one of them will bring me some real breakfast."

"I'll make sure that they won't. For as long as I'm here, you'll follow the doctor's orders."

Henry got up from his chair. He got as far as to the door before Shawn's voice interrupted him. "Maybe you should go home and get some sleep!"

Shawn didn't see the eye-roll, but he knew it had been there. And now while his father was gone, all he needed to do was pick up the phone beside his bed and call Gus. His friend wouldn't leave him in such a lurch. Gus knew that Shawn's body was a fine-tuned machine that couldn't possibly run on jell-o for breakfast.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Thirty minutes later, Shawn's hospital room was stuffed to full capacity. Lassiter and Juliet were sitting on two chairs on the left side of Shawn's bed. Gus was leaning against the wall near the foot end of the bed, and Shawn was glowering at his father who was once more sitting on the chair to Shawn's right. Henry did his best to ignore his son's pointed stares as he took a hefty bite out of the breakfast bagel he had confiscated from Gus a few moments earlier.

Shawn stopped glowering when he realized he was being ignored and stared listlessly at the tray with his own breakfast, courtesy of the hospital kitchen. A cup of thin camomile tea and a small bowl with yellow jell-o. There was no way he was going to eat that. The nurse had lifted the head of his bed up earlier so that he could sit upright for eating, so at least he wasn't lying prone on his back anymore. But whether sitting up or lying down, there was just no way he was going to eat that stuff.

Fortunately, Lassiter interrupted the silence in the room before Henry could remind his son about his so-called breakfast.

"All right Spencer, how about you tell us what happened yesterday?"

Shawn nodded. "Sure. Could somebody get my jacket?"

Henry tossed the wrapping of the bagel into the trash bin and shook his head. "Shawn, we talked about this. You won't leave until the doctors say you can."

Juliet's eyes widened. "You want to get yourself discharged?"

"When I came back to his room earlier he was just telling the nurse that he wanted to discharge himself AMA." Henry's voice was neutral, but there was something in his eyes that spoke volumes of what he thought about that particular plan.

Shawn only rolled his eyes. "You'd be disappointed if I hadn't even tried, Dad. And I don't want my jacket to try and outrun all four of you in an elaborate escape plan despite the searing pain in my side whenever I only move a little, I want my jacket because there's something I need for the explanation in it."

Henry didn't look as if he believed that explanation for a moment, but he got up from his chair and went over towards the closet. He handed the jacket to his son and sat down again.

Shawn turned the jacket over in his hands and was about to reach into the inner pocket when his eyes fell on the bullet hole. It was just a small hole on the front right side, but the hole in the back was quite a bit bigger. And frayed. And spattered with blood. After a moment, Shawn sighed.

"I guess I won't be wearing that anymore."

He reached into the inner pocket and withdrew all the clues he had collected the previous days and all the letters psycho had sent him. They had been in the left inside pocket and had been spared from the bullet.

"I got a call at four in the morning yesterday. It was a mechanically distorted voice telling me to check my mail. I didn't really want to, but there was an envelope on my doorstep. Inside was a set of rules for a game of 'Catch me if you can' as he called it. And that picture of my Dad." Shawn put the two sheets of paper down on the bed and stoically ignored the gazes of all other people in the room, but especially his father's. He saw that Henry reached for the picture of him in front of his house, but Shawn didn't watch his expression.

"What happened then?" Lassiter asked.

"That guy called again. He said he wanted to play a game, and now I had the rules. If I didn't follow the rules, he said he'd ki…he'd go after my father. I told him I didn't want to play any games with guys who called me up at four in the morning and hung up. About half an hour later I got a text message telling me to call my Dad."

"So that's how you knew when to call me."

Shawn nodded. "Yes. It was him who set fire to your kitchen, and he also rang the doorbell to wake you up before the fire spread through the entire house. He called me again and told me that I had to play along with his little game to stop anything else from happening. I wasn't to tell anybody of that game, and I wasn't allowed to warn my father, or Gus."

"He threatened Guster as well?" Lassiter asked.

"Yes, later. To make sure I knew what was at stake."

"But what was the game he wanted to play?" Juliet asked, her face creased in a frown.

"It seems that this psycho…"

"Roger Dorn." Lassiter interrupted. Seeing Shawn's puzzled expression, he shrugged. "That's his name. Roger Dorn."

Shawn sighed. "Whatever. Dorn committed a couple of crimes, three murders that I know of. He obviously fancied himself a genius serial killer. He left clues at the crime scene hoping that the police would pick them up during the investigation, but they didn't. Pissed him off pretty good, obviously. So he did a little research, stumbled across my track record and thought I'd be the perfect candidate to figure out what the police couldn't. So he sent me across the city to chase down the clues the police missed."

"But why didn't you tell anybody, Shawn?"

Shawn looked at Gus in exasperation. "Because he told me that he was watching me, Gus. I mean, by now I know that he was watching where my cell phone went, but I didn't know that. All I knew was that he always knew when I was where, when I left and who I talked to. One time Dad called me, and not even a minute later I get a call reminding me about his fucked up little rules. What was I supposed to think? I didn't know how he was watching me, but I knew that he was, so I didn't dare to talk to anybody."

"What crime scenes did he send you to? Do you know the names of the victims?"

"The names are Bergstrom, Hankinson and Schroeder. The clues he left were stupid. A Polaroid, a calling card and a playing card." Shawn tossed the clues onto the blanket for the others to see. "They didn't make any sense, though he kept on telling me that they were supposed to lead me to a meeting with him. No prints on them, by the way, I already checked. When I couldn't figure it out, he told me to go to another address. He said I'd find the key to solving the puzzle there. The address was Gus'."

Silence settled over the room. Gus was watching his friend with wide eyes, and Lassiter and Juliet shared a knowing look, as if they now finally pieced together Shawn's strange behaviour from the previous day.

"That's why you were acting so strange when you found us in Gus' apartment." Juliet said.

Shawn nodded. "At first I…well, I thought that the bastard had hurt Gus, too. But Gus was all right, only his apartment was thrashed. I needed to find that clue he had hidden there, so I needed to get you out of the apartment. I didn't know if he was still watching, and I couldn't be seen talking to the police. Not with what was at stake. So I threw you out the apartment." He looked up at Lassiter and Juliet. "I'm sorry for that. Gus won't have any trouble filing the report for the insurance, will he? I mean, he didn't throw you out, that was me. He wanted to file that report."

"Gus already filed the report, Shawn. It's all right."

Shawn sighed in relief and flashed Juliet a smile. "Good."

"So what was the clue he left?"

Shawn put the second Polaroid atop his blanket. The four other people in the room, including Gus who had already seen the picture, stared at it in puzzlement.

"What's that?" Lassiter finally asked.

"A lamp, Lassie. A floor lamp, to be precise. A stylish, yet functional and decorative addition to Gus' interior design, if I might say so."

"Shawn," Henry snapped in a warning tone.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "It was a clue to something he told me before. I should see things in the right light. I just didn't take it literally before. The clues as such don't make sense, but if you look at them under a black light, you'll see that he left the name of his next victim at each crime scene. He left the name of a guy called van Bruinen on his last clue, but when I looked at the picture I found in Gus' apartment, that name had been crossed out. And underneath he had written _Henry Spencer_."

Lassiter nodded thoughtfully while Juliet was scribbling in her notebook. Shawn didn't look at his father, but he heard how Henry drew in a deep breath. Not an intake of breath of the shocked kind, it was the exasperated kind of intake of breath, one that Shawn knew only too well. But he'd not get into that kind of argument with his father right now.

"So you drove to your father's house."

Shawn nodded at Lassiter's words. "Yes."

"Why didn't you call the police at that point?"

"I don't know Lassie, maybe I wasn't thinking too clearly when I saw my father's name on top of the list of people a homicidal maniac was about to kill! I was busy trying to get to my father's house. And I still didn't know how that bastard was watching me. I tried to call my Dad to warn him, but I didn't reach him."

"So you went there and tried to stop that guy all on your own?"

"I didn't exactly have a lot of time to figure out a plan! I knew where my Dad kept his gun, so I climbed up the garage roof and took it out of his bedroom before I went downstairs. And for that not being a plan, it worked out fine!"

"If you call having a bullet hole in your side 'fine' Spencer, then it was a great plan, yes. But had it not been for Guster's warning, the ambulance might not have arrived in time, did you ever think about that?"

"Yeah, and if that psycho Dorn had aimed a little further to the right, nobody would have gotten hurt at all. That's the wonderful thing about what ifs, there's just so many possibilities! Fact is Gus did warn you, for which I'm glad, and the ambulance did arrive in time. Could we just leave it at that, please?"

Lassiter rolled his eyes, but didn't protest against that suggestion. "What happened then?"

"I found that psycho Dorn and my Dad in the living room. He had knocked my father out and was waiting for me. We yelled at each other for a while, he accused me of breaking his stupid little rules, I tried to stop him from shooting my father. That kind of conversation, I think you know how it works."

"What did he say about his motivations?"

Shawn shrugged with his good left shoulder. His right side was starting to hurt again, and he didn't want to aggravate that by moving his shoulder. "He was pretty pissed that you didn't find his clues when he left them. Seems that Mr. Dorn wanted to become a cop himself, and when he fluked the psych evaluation, he decided that becoming a serial killer might just be the perfect way to show the police that he was far more clever than they are. It was a twisted bit of logic, but his main argument was that had he been able to become a cop, he wouldn't have missed those clues. He said the police forced him to cross over to the other side of the law. He wanted the police to chase him, and if the SBPD didn't do it maybe the FBI would. He figured if he killed my father and me, the police would investigate more closely. He even threatened to go to New Jersey next if they still didn't pick up on the clues after he killed my father and me."

Henry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. Gus muttered a small expletive under his breath, and only Lassiter and Juliet looked clueless.

"What is in New Jersey?" Juliet finally asked.

It was Henry who answered. "Shawn's mother lives in New Jersey."

"Oh."

"Anyway," Shawn interrupted before Juliet could ask any more questions. "I was looking for a chance to pull the gun on him, but he never took his own gun away from my father's head. In the end he lost his patience; he freaked and cocked the gun. I tried to pull my own gun, he saw me move and shot me. I don't really remember what happened afterwards, but I'm sure my father already told you."

Lassiter nodded and Juliet closed her notebook after she finished writing.

"All right everybody, that's been enough for now." Henry said. "Shawn needs rest, and I'm sure everything else can wait until tomorrow."

"Of course. We'll need both of your official statements, but that can wait a little. For now we've got all we need."

The two detectives got up from their chairs, and Lassiter pocketed the letters and clues Shawn had pulled from his pocket earlier.

"Get better soon, Shawn." Juliet said with a smile before she followed her partner out of the room. Gus pushed himself off the wall and took a few steps towards the bed.

"I'll be back later in the afternoon, all right? I've still got some tidying up to do."

"Sure thing, dude. I'll see you then."

Shawn only hoped that Gus would try again to sneak him some real food when he came back.

And Gus left. Now Shawn only wondered for how long exactly his Dad planned on staying. His side was aching fiercely now, and he really didn't fancy a discussion with his father right now.

He chanced a look at his Dad from the corner of his eye.

Darn.

He knew the expression on his father's face, knew it only too well, and it didn't bode well.

"All right Dad, what do you want to say?"

"What gives you the idea that I want to say anything?"

Shawn smiled. "Oh come on. Your face says you're just waiting to spit it all out, so we might as well get it over and done with."

Henry crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You know very well what I want to say."

"Just pretend I'm stupid."

"What you did certainly was."

"What, playing along to some sick psychopath's rules? Yes, that I think we can agree on. It was stupid. But I didn't have any other choice, Dad. The first time I refused to play along, that bastard nearly burned you alive, so don't try to tell me that I should have done something different! I know that it's probably hard for you to believe, but I was worried about you, all right? I was scared that he'd make good on his threat. There, is that what you wanted to hear? I was worried, I admit it. So I'm sorry if not even something I've done out of concern for your safety is a good thing in your eyes, but that's just the way it is."

"I'm not talking about the fact that he forced you to play along with his little game, Shawn. I'm talking about what you did in my living room, right before he shot you. You were baiting him, you were goading him even though you knew that he was unstable. What did you want to achieve with that, did you _want_ him to shoot you?"

"I didn't want him to shoot _you_!" Shawn snapped back. "In case you hadn't noticed, he had a gun pressed to your head for the entire conversation. Nothing I said or did ever brought him to point it away from you. So yes, I wanted to provoke him. I wanted to throw him off track so that I might get the chance to pull my gun. I'm sorry if that seems stupid to you, but I just didn't want that psychopath to shoot you."

Henry closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "He shot you, Shawn. Had he aimed just a little to the left you'd be dead now."

"And if I hadn't tried to pull the gun, he'd have shot you and you'd be dead now!"

"That's not the point!" Henry yelled.

"Yes, it is!" Shawn yelled right back, but raising his voice to that level was too much of a strain. He sank back into his pillow with a small, pained sigh. The expression on Henry's face immediately softened.

"Are you in pain?"

Shawn nodded wordlessly.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Lassie and Jules needed to know what happened."  
"You've been in pain for the entire interview and didn't say anything?" Henry placed a hand on Shawn's forehead. "Your temperature has gone up. I'm going to get a nurse."

Henry made move to withdraw his hand, but again Shawn reached for his wrist and stopped him.

"Shawn, this is really not the right time to pull one of your "I don't need any pain meds-acts."

Shawn shook his head. "It's not that. Something for the pain actually sounds good right now. But I need you to understand that I couldn't let him shoot you."

Henry closed his eyes for a moment and bit his lip. When he opened his eyes again, it took a moment until he met Shawn's eyes again. "He'd have either shot me or you. If the alternative to me getting shot is that you're shot in my stead, I'd prefer it if you just let him shoot me."

Shawn shook his head slightly. "No can do, Dad. You should know better than to ask something like that from me."

Henry shook his head and ran a hand over his face. After a moment, he slowly pulled his hand out of Shawn's grasp and straightened up.

"I'm going to get a nurse now. That shot against the pain will probably knock you out pretty quickly."

"Go home and get some sleep." Shawn said.

Henry nodded. "Yes, I'm going to do that. I'll come back in the afternoon, and I'll bring you something to eat." He eyed the tray with the uneaten jell-o. "Something more substantial than that, but if you dare to touch any of that crap Gus is going to try and smuggle in here, I'm going to let them feed you intravenously from now on."

Shawn smiled tiredly and nodded. "All right."

"Good. I'll be back in a moment."

Fifteen minutes later, the nurse had administered a shot of pain medication and Shawn was fast asleep. Henry waited until he was sure that his son wouldn't wake up for the next few hours, then he got up from his chair and left the hospital room. He had a couple of hours of sleep to catch up on, and he needed to be back here in the afternoon to make sure that Shawn stuck to the doctor's orders.

He knew how his son was when it came to following medical advice. It was always better to keep a close eye on him. Especially if Shawn tried to pull Gus into it as well. Henry would probably have to thwart at least two escape plans until the day was over, it would be better if he got some sleep before that.


	11. Epilogues

**Epilogue**** (I) – Sorry seems to be the hardest word**

A week in the hospital. A week!

And Shawn was pretty sure that his father had had him declared incompetent to make his own decisions during that time, because no matter how often he asked one of the nurses to bring him the papers he needed to discharge himself AMA, those papers had never arrived in his room. Oh, the nurses had smiled, nodded and patted his hand. "Sure honey, I'll have them brought here in a moment."

Yeah, right. But nobody had brought him the papers.

And with the healing wound in his side, he hadn't been up to any stealthy sneaking down corridors and out the hospital.

So he had been stuck in that place for a whole week!

Well, five days after he woke up actually, but that was a whole working week. More for some people.

And that was not the worst part. No, the worst part was that he had been stuck with hospital food and the occasional healthy side-dish his Dad had brought him for the entire time. Fruit salad. Sandwiches without cheese or mayonnaise. Who was supposed to survive on that?

Gus had tried, Shawn had to give it to his friend. Gus had tried each and every single day to smuggle something edible into Shawn's hospital room. But Henry Spencer had mutated into a bouncer, and Shawn's hospital room had become his own personal nightclub. He had even frisked Gus once. Frisked, like a suspect before the arrest!

Whatever Gus had tried to smuggle through to his friend, Henry had confiscated it. Burritos, burgers, tacos, coffee and smoothies, none had made it as far as Shawn's bed. Well, they had made it to the side of Shawn's bed, where Henry had eaten them up while Shawn could only watch. His Dad hadn't needed to worry about where to get his food while his son was in the hospital, he had been living la vida dulce while Shawn had been stuck with thin tea, overcooked vegetables and greyish meat.

But now he was out of the hospital again, out of the clutches of Henry 'Hawkeye' Spencer, and life was looking good again. Though the extra large pizza he was currently carrying up a flight of stairs wasn't meant for him. Well, not entirely at least. Which was why it was only half Hawaii, and half pepperoni and extra cheese. After all, not everybody was a fan of the delicious flavour.

Shawn had received frequent visitors during his stay at the hospital. His Dad and Gus of course, and Juliet and Lassiter, though Shawn suspected that Lassie had only come because Jules had dragged him along. Officer Allen had been there, and other patrol officers Shawn was friendly with. Even the Chief had dropped by twice. Only one person had been suspiciously absent, and Shawn was about to remedy that.

It had been ridiculously easy to figure out when to best catch him alone. Shawn's stealth mode might still be hampered by the stitches in his side, but his brain was working perfectly fine, thank you very much. It had been a matter of a few chosen moments of sneakiness and advanced private detecting to figure out on which day of the week young Mrs. McNabb had her book club meeting. It was today. Which meant that tonight was the night to set some things right.

Shawn reached Buzz' apartment and juggled a little with the pizza box to get his hand free. He knocked on the door and waited.

A few seconds later the door opened and Buzz stood in the doorway. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt advertising a local gym, and the expression on his face when he saw Shawn was astonished, to say the least.

"Shawn."

"Hey Buzz."

"How…I mean, what are you doing here?"

Buzz wasn't really meeting Shawn's eyes, and Shawn didn't like the awkwardness. It was about time that changed again.

"I was in the neighbourhood. Can I come in?"

Buzz hesitated for a moment, then he nodded and stepped aside to let Shawn into the apartment. It still looked the same it had done the first time Shawn had been here, the night that psychopath had tried to kill Buzz. There were some touches of a female presence all over the rooms, different pictures, plants here and there, but Mrs. McNabb hadn't completely rearranged the whole interior of the apartment.

As Shawn set the pizza box down on the living room table, something brushed against his ankles. He looked down and saw the little boy cat, which had turned out not to be a boy cat at all, rub against his legs.

"Hey there!" Shawn picked the cat up and rubbed the animal behind its ears. "Somebody has grown a lot since I last saw you."

"Yeah, and she also had a litter of kittens since."

Shawn put the cat back down and looked at Buzz, who was watching him with a raised eyebrow.

"So you were in the neighbourhood and you just happened to have a pizza with you?"

Shawn smiled. Buzz might seem a bit slow and gullible at times, but he definitely wasn't stupid.

"Yeah, I lied about that. I wanted to drop by. I wanted to talk to you about what happened."

Buzz sighed and gestured for Shawn to take a chair. Shawn had gone through this conversation in his head before, over and over again, but that didn't exactly help him right now. Not really.

Chief Vick wasn't stupid. She had been there when Shawn had given his official statement, it had been one of the two times she had visited him in the hospital. And she had immediately understood that Shawn couldn't have gotten the evidence from the Hankinson case without the help of a cop.

Shawn hadn't wanted to incriminate Buzz, not at all. He had wanted to keep him out of this completely, after all he had promised Buzz that there wouldn't be any trouble for him. But Chief Vick hadn't left him a choice. She had told Shawn in no uncertain terms that either he'd tell her who had helped him or she'd get it out of Erin Brickowski. Shawn hadn't had a choice, because he already knew that Brickowski would only incriminate him all too gladly. It had taken ten minutes of haggling with the Chief, but finally he had told her about Buzz involvement, under the condition that he'd not receive a formal reprimand for letting a civilian into the evidence room.

The Chief knew what Shawn's behaviour had been about, but Shawn wasn't stupid. He knew that in her position she couldn't just let Buzz' behaviour slide. Buzz had broken the rules about handling evidence, he had made it possible for a civilian to get access to valuable evidence. No matter that it had been Shawn, no matter that he was a consultant, no matter that Shawn had lied to Buzz.

There had been no formal reprimand, no entry in Buzz file, nothing. But Juliet had told Shawn about the ten very uncomfortable minutes Buzz had been forced to spend in the Chief's office, listening to her explaining the details of evidence procedure and why it was so important to him as if he were a rookie on his first day. It had been a thorough dressing down, and Shawn just knew that it had been horribly uncomfortable for Buzz.

Buzz shifted slightly in his chair. "Listen Shawn, I'm really trying to forget that all this even happened."

"I know. I just…I need to explain to you why I did what I did."

Buzz shook his head. "I might not have been involved in the case, but it was pretty hard to miss the talk at the station over the past weeks. I know that this guy Dorn was forcing you to do these things. It's all right, really."

"No, it isn't. I used you, and I got you into trouble even though I promised I wouldn't. You're my friend Buzz, and that's not what friends do." Shawn drew a deep breath. "It was about my father. That psychopath had me jumping through hoops for his own sick pleasure, and he threatened to kill my father if I didn't play along. He was watching me, and I couldn't tell anybody about it. What I said back then, about that night when that guy was trying to force you to hang yourself…" He shook his head and looked Buzz straight in the eye. "I crossed a line. I was desperate, and I was scared. I'd have never brought this up under any other circumstances. And I'd have never tried to use it to make you do anything for me under normal circumstances. I'm sorry that I did. And I'm sorry that I lied to you, and that you got into trouble because of it."

Buzz sighed. "I know Shawn. It's all right, I told you that."

"The Chief dressing you down for a whole ten minutes is all right?"

Buzz only shrugged, but there was a smile on his face. "When you leave the academy and start going on duty, that's one of the first things you're told. Sooner or later you're going to screw something up, and sooner or later you're going to end up in the Chief's office for it. Nobody's got the perfect track record. It had to happen sooner or later, and at least I got to help a friend for it and nobody got hurt. I simply have to make sure that it won't happen again. And it won't."

Shawn smiled. "So we're good?"

Buzz nodded. "Sure."

"No hard feelings?"

Buzz laughed. "Not unless there's pineapple on this whole pizza."

"Psychic, remember?"

Shaw flipped back the lid to reveal the half-Hawaii half-pepperoni pizza and Buzz got up from his chair.

"I'm going to get plates and napkins. Do you want a beer?"

"No thanks, I took the bike. But I'll take a soda if you have one."

"One soda coming right up."

Shawn leaned back in his chair and smiled. Now this whole nightmare was finally over.

**Epilogue (II) – The Call**

From somewhere, there came music. Groggily, Shawn turned over in his bed and pulled the pillow over his head, but to no avail. The music continued. Shawn pulled the pillow away and started to sit up in his bed. Only then did he recognise the song.

_La Cucaracha._

From one moment to the next, Shawn sat bolt upright in his bed, heart beating fast in his chest as the thoughts swirled through his mind.

Psycho.

But that couldn't be. Roger Dorn was still in the hospital, and he was under twenty-four hour guard.

A guard who was sitting outside his room.

And there were telephones in the hospital, who said that they had thought about cutting Dorn's phone line?

Was Dorn even awake yet? Shawn didn't remember being told about that, only that he was still alive and that they were waiting for his condition to be stable enough to transport him to a prison hospital.

He might be awake.

And he might be calling.

Hesitantly, Shawn stretched out his hand and picked up his cell phone.

Even if it was Dorn who was calling him, there was nothing the psychopath could do. He was stuck in a hospital bed, he couldn't get out. He couldn't hurt his Dad or Gus.

"Hello?"

"Hey Shawn." Not the mechanically distorted voice Shawn had come to associate with that particular ringtone, but a high-pitched girlish voice.

"Who's this?"

"It's Sandy. You might not remember, but we met in Bob's Pub about two weeks ago and you gave me your number. I know that it's late, but I thought if you don't have any other plans, we might get together for a drink?"

Shawn checked the clock on his bedside table. It was 11:35 pm.

"No offense Sandy, but it's a little late for that. How about we talk some other time? Good night."  
"Good night, Shawn."

Shawn disconnected and sank back into his pillows. He stared at the phone in his hand while he waited for his heartbeat to slow down again.

He really needed to change that ringtone.

The End

A/N: Anothe story finished. Thank you all so much for the reviews. The next one is ready to be posted, just keep your eyes open in a day or two. Thanks a lot.


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